


Timing Is Everything

by liziscribbles



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Artist!Noctis, Fluff, M/M, Medium Sizzle, Old Flame Rekindling, Older Promptis, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Reunions, SO MUCH FLUFF, Self-indulgent fluff, Single Dad!Prompto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-02-08 19:27:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 55,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12871407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liziscribbles/pseuds/liziscribbles
Summary: [Older!Promptis, reunited at a high school reunion]Noctis and Prompto fell out of contact at the age of twenty, as their lives pulled them in different directions.  Now, Noctis is an artist, well-renowned all over Eos, and Prompto is back in Insomnia, a single dad who is working two jobs to support his daughter.When a high school reunion brings them back together, life gives them the second chance that they missed seven years ago.  But seven years is a long time apart, so they have to relearn each other before anything else can happen.





	1. Hearts Without Chains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _and if time was still, we'd have no fear,_  
>  _or scars to heal, in our hearts without chains..._  
> [hearts without chains](https://open.spotify.com/track/2TWqTeDjVpcZfgrblmf86g) ;; ellie goulding

High school reunions were stupid.

That was all Prompto could think as he loosened his tie and stared at himself in the mirror. Honestly, he looked mostly the same. Maybe a little bit fuller in the chest and shoulders. Enough that he didn't look as weird in a suit now as he did when he graduated. He didn't look like a model or anything. No, he just swam a little bit less in _this_ suit than he had in the black one that he'd worn on his graduation day. Tugging lightly at the lapels, and then flattening them against his shoulders, he sighed. How had he let Aranea and Cindy convince him this was a good idea?

It had been years since he'd talked to _anyone_ he'd gone to school with. The last one was Noctis, and even that was several years ago. At _least_ five. Probably closer to seven.

At the thought of his old friend—his _former_ friend, realistically, since Prompto hadn't really talked to him since they were twenty—Prompto huffed a soft and sad laugh. If nothing else, he took solace in the fact that Noctis wouldn't be here. No, Noctis was probably somewhere way better than stuck at a stupid reunion. Altissia. Tenebrae. Somewhere showing his art off and being as amazing as Prompto always thought he could be. Though, without Noctis there, was there any real reason for Prompto to go? Actually, there really wasn't any reason for Prompto to go _with_ Noctis there, but that was beside the point.

Prompto really had absolutely zero desire to see any of them. With that in mind, he reached up to loosen his tie a little bit more, planning to pull it off and change back into his normal clothes. They couldn't be mad at him if he told them that he really didn't want to go. Right? Just as his hand touched the pink paisley tie to remove it, the door swung open and in bounded his very favorite person in the world.

"Daddy!" Venia squealed as she sprinted across the room and jumped up onto his bed. "You look so pretty!"

Laughing softly, Prompto turned toward his daughter, catching her as she leapt across the short space that separated them and squeezing her softly when she hugged him. "Ah, thanks, Pipsqueak. I'm wearin' the tie you picked. See? And the little pocket thing that goes with it." Crouching down, Prompto gathered the pocket square from the bed and tucked it into his top pocket.

With a hum of approval, Venia brushed her fingertips over the pocket square and then turned her head to meet Prompto's eyes. "Auntie Cin-Cin says she and Auntie Nea are gonna watch movies with me while you're at your 'union. Are you _sure_ you gotta go? I think Auntie Nea said we was gonna have popcorn and _everything_."

Honestly, sitting and watching whatever princess movie that Venia wanted to watch sounded way, way better than walking down memory lane with a bunch of people he didn't even like. Prompto was about to tell Venia that he would _absolutely_ stay home with her, when Aranea appeared in the doorway and shook her head no.

"C'mon, Ven. I told you. Daddy's goin' to the reunion tonight, and we're gonna have a girl's night in, remember?"

Prompto half-smiled. "What, I'm not girl enough to hang with the girls?" he asked, setting Venia down on the bed and watching as she plopped down to sit butterfly style.

It was Venia who replied, not Aranea. "Daddy! Don't be silly! You is not a girl, you is a boy!" she put her hand over her mouth and giggled gently.

Chuckling softly, Prompto leaned down and poked Venia in the nose. "Hey, just because I'm a boy doesn't mean that I can't watch movies and stuff with the rest of you. I do it every _other_ Friday, don't I?" he asked her, smoothing some unruly curls from her face. The braid crown that Cindy had put Venia's hair in this morning was starting to fall apart into a frazzled mess. She looked like she hadn't seen a brush in months, no matter how untrue Prompto knew that was.

A soft bit of laughter came from the doorway, not Aranea's this time, and Cindy brushed past her girlfriend to step into the room and sit on the bed next to Venia. "Not this time, Prom. People're expectin' ya. C'mon, it ain't gonna be as bad as you think it is. Betcha everyone there's gonna be just as miserable as you are." Cindy collected Venia up, plopping the tiny girl on her lap and hugging her around the middle.

Aranea nodded. "Besides, you don't look terrible. Bet you look better than all of them," she teased.

"Was that supposed to motivate me?" Prompto asked his friend, before turning to look back at the mirror.

Yeah, he liked this suit. Yeah, he looked okay. If everyone there was going to be miserable, though? If no one was going to be happy, and the one person that _maybe_ he wanted to see a little bit wasn't even going to be there? What was the point? Turning around, he glanced from Aranea, to Cindy and Venia, and gathered the hair tie he kept on his wrist to pull his long and unruly mess of hair back. Sure, he was grateful to Cindy and Aranea, for always being willing to babysit Venia in situations like this. Not just that, but he was _also_ glad that they were such good female influences on her. Between them and Iris, Venia really didn't have a shortage of good female role models. Still, that meant that Prompto didn't even have that excuse to skip this.

Venia smiled, and more on instinct than anything, Prompto reciprocated. It was hard not to smile when his little girl looked at him with such honest eagerness in her eyes. "I think you should bring your camera!" She wiggled out of Cindy's lap, and dashed over toward Prompto's desk in the corner of his room. Gathering his small digital camera, she bounded back over to Prompto and held the camera up for him.

While a part of Prompto wondered exactly why he needed his camera, he glanced down at the eagerness in his daughter's eyes as she held the device out to him and chuckled fondly. "Never know when I'm gonna need to snap a pic, right?" he asked her as he accepted it.

"I kinda wanna see what the old stompin' grounds look like, anyway," Cindy added, pushing herself up from the bed and busying herself with fixing Venia's braid.

Prompto huffed a slightly annoyed laugh as he tilted his head sideways at Cindy. "I mean. It can't've changed much since you went to your reunion, Cin. That was only six years ago. Right?" He glanced down at his camera for a minute, fiddling with some of the settings, before gathering his camera bag and setting it inside. Over his shoulder the camera bag went, and he glanced back up at Cindy and Venia.

Shrugging from the doorway, Aranea mused, "right, but you never know when something memorable's gonna happen. You want it with you. Trust me."

There was something about the expression on her face—part conspiratory, part amused—that unsettled Prompto a little bit, but he just shrugged and gave himself one last glance in the mirror. No different than he looked the last time he checked, honestly, but he didn't know what he expected. Shaking his head hard to dispel any further anxiety, he looked around the room at the girls, pulled in a heavy breath, puffed it out, then nodded one resolute, secure nod. If he waited too much longer, if he tried to stall any further, he'd end up throwing himself on his knees and begging not to have to go. To spare his dignity, he decided to forgo that.

Straightening his back, he flashed what he hoped was a confident and secure smile to Venia, before leaning down and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Be back before you know it, Squirt, okay?"

"If you're back before ten p.m., we're locking you out," Aranea countered, before leaning forward and ruffling his hair. "Seriously, though. Just have some fun, okay? I promise, Prom. It won't be as bad as you think it will." She punctuated her tease with a tiny little grin as she snaked her arm around Cindy's waist.

A part of him wanted to bank on the fact that Aranea was kidding about locking him out, but the rest of him was absolutely positive that she wasn't. Instead of commenting on that, he just laughed an awkward note, patted his pockets to make sure that his keys and wallet were in there, and then headed out into the hallway to leave. He heard three sets of footsteps beside him, one of which quickly disappeared, and a glance over his shoulder showed him that Aranea had Venia on her shoulders now. Chuckling, Prompto stopped at the door and turned to glance at them.

His chest was puffed in an attempt to seem confident, but his face almost definitely belied that as he glanced from Cindy, to Aranea, to Venia, and then back to Cindy. "Wish me luck?" he asked.

"Won't need it," Cindy countered.

Aranea nodded her agreement. "You'll have a blast. Guaranteed."

The smile on Venia's face was part confused, part comforting. Even though Prompto was positive that his daughter had no idea what was going on, she nodded her head rapidly and waved over Aranea's head at him. "It's just like what you told me when I started school, Daddy. Don't be scared, 'cause you'll make a ton of new friends, right? And now I got Polly and Gina and Julie and-"

Prompto couldn't help the smile that spread across his face as Venia listed off the names of all of her school friends, and when she finally finished, he countered with a gentle smile and a slightly more secure nod. If he wanted her to be confident, then he had to practice what he preached when it came to things like that. Easier said than done, sure, but he could try. So, he waved a last wave at the three of them, before turning on his heel, opening the door, and stepping out into the late summer evening.

Insomnia was always hot in the summer. Even at night, it was almost like the air was filled with a suffocating humidity that, at the moment, was making Prompto acutely aware that he was wearing a three-piece suit. Breathing in some of the thick air, he stepped down the front steps and onto the pavement that composed the front walk. A slight breeze blew through, rustling the trees that Cindy had planted on either side of the walkway. It shouldn't have been enough to catch Prompto off guard, but his nerves were on high because of this whole situation, so he darted his eyes up to look at them.

A glance over his shoulder told him that Aranea, Cindy, and Venia were all watching him through the front window. In Aranea and Cindy's case, they were almost definitely trying to make sure that he actually left. Venia, though, was probably just along for the ride. Prompto knew that she just wanted to see him have a good time. She always told him that he was the "best daddy ever," or something like that. That, more than anything, put a small smile on his face as he headed to his car.

Everything would be fine. If worse came to worse, if the whole thing was just too much for him, he could always leave. He wouldn't have much to drink—maybe something to ease his nerves a little bit, seeing all of these people that he didn't want to see—so that he could easily get himself home. Turning the car on, he flipped the stereo away from the silly little kid's album that he always had on for Venia and to the Top 40 station, trying to distract his mind for the ride.

It worked, at least until the car stopped in the already-full school parking lot.

Strange. Insomnia High looked equal parts the same and different. The campus, in and of itself, looked much the same. The same statues, honoring the same people. There were plaques for donors—like the one that honored Noctis' dad, and Gladio's dad, and all of the other people that Prompto knew who were rich enough to donate—and the giant garden that the botany club planted back when he was a junior still flourished. The building looked the same, for the most part, too. There was a new addition built on, Prompto remembered them talking about that on the news before Venia was born.

Other than that, though, the place looked the same. Aside, of course, from the massive banner that hung over the door, welcoming the graduating class of 753.

Breathing in a slow and steady breath and holding it inside for a few seconds, Prompto nodded once to himself, reshouldered his camera bag, and then headed toward the door. _What's the worst that could happen?_ he asked himself. There were dozens of really unfortunate answers to that, honestly, but he tried not to let his mind go down that rabbit hole as he pushed the front door to the school open and stepped inside.

Instantly, he was overcome with a wave of nostalgia. Fall Out Boy echoed out from the gymnasium and into the front hall. The room looked exactly like it had ten years ago. The walls were painted gray, speckled with silver glitter, just like they'd always been. Black streamers hung from the ceiling, and there were dozens of banners of awards that Prompto's graduating class had won. Pictures of significant people in their class were all over the place, too. His eyes almost scanned past a picture of Noctis—his old best friends' valedictorian picture—but he stopped quickly and approached the wall, eyeing the picture.

Vividly, Prompto had a flashing memory of himself and Noctis, hand in hand, as they ditched senior prom to run through these very halls, up to the gymnasium's roof, and stare up at the stars in the sky.

_"No matter what happens," Noctis had asked him, "we'll always..."_

_Prompto hadn't even let him finish speaking. "'Course we will. You're stuck with me, Noct," he'd replied._

Stuck with him. They'd tried. It wasn't like they just went their own ways after high school, and just completely stopped talking to each other. They'd tried to maintain their friendship for a long time. Three years, they'd call and text and get together whenever Noctis was in Insomnia and Prompto had time off. It wasn't as simple as that, though. They'd maintained the friendship for three years, until Noctis finished art school, and he _really_ started traveling. Prompto was pretty sure that rumors had told him of his old friend living in Altissia now. Or maybe that he had an apartment in Tenebrae.

A jet setter like him, someone as well-known as he was in the art world? Prompto wouldn't be surprised if it was both.

The picture that Prompto was looking at right then had the pair of them, doing some sort of random and weird trust fall exercise at their senior trip to the weird resort the class had chosen in the grasslands. Prompto was smiling, not a care in the world as he fell backward into Noctis' chest. Nothing but trust that his best friend would catch him. Noctis, too, looked happy. Prompto remembered this being the time in Noctis' life when his depression was really starting to show itself. Noctis' depression, Prompto's anxiety... they both had things working against them, sure, but they'd still managed to feel comfortable with each other.

Prompto was pretty sure that he'd spent most of high school and all of the three years afterward when they stayed in touch, head over heels in love with his best friend. A couple of years afterward too, if he was completely honest with himself. A part of him—a small, easy-to-ignore part of him—still loved what Noctis had been to him back then. What the memory of Noctis was to him even now. That coaxed a laugh out of Prompto as he eyed the old picture of them together. Definitely a secret that he'd take to his grave.

Thinking back to all the nights when his adoptive parents had been away on business trips brought a tiny smile to his face. Nights when Prompto would have been alone. Instead, he'd knock on Noctis' door, and he and Noctis spent all night on the couch watching movies or TV or playing video games, or sometimes just _talking_ until the sun started coming up. Those nights felt almost bittersweet now. Back then, he felt like nothing could touch them. Nothing could shake their friendship. It was all Prompto could think of, though, as he signed in at the counter and then walked into the gymnasium. Time made a fool of him, just like it did to everyone else.

Regret washed over him as soon as he pushed the doors open.

It was a little bit depressing, seeing everyone standing in the same exact social groups they'd been in ten years ago. Old friends talking and laughing—though it was less the happy talking of friends in school together, and more the talking of old friends that hadn't seen one another in years, much like Prompto and Noctis—remembering old times. In his periphery, he saw a couple of people who didn't seem to have changed at all. Fortis and Emilie, the quarterback and the head cheerleader, were married. Or, at the very least, still dating. That much was obvious by the way he had his arm possessively wrapped around her waist. Prompto honestly couldn't even say he was surprised at that.

A couple of his old teachers were there, too—the history teacher, Professor Elshett stood next to the old custodian, Dave Auburnbrie—chatting and pointing at various different alumni. Maybe Prompto would start there. Professor Elshett had always been nice to him, and Dave was definitely a major hand in always making sure that he and Noctis never got caught skipping classes. Yeah. That was a safe place to start. After he got a drink, anyway.

Two steps were all he managed to take, though, before his eyes turned toward the refreshment table and he caught sight of the very last person he expected to see... and the very first person he _wanted_ to see.

Standing at the refreshment table, filling a glass with some sort of amber colored drink, was an unmistakable figure. Or maybe unmistakable was a stretch. From the back, Prompto never would have had any idea. His posture was different. His body was a little bit more filled out. Still thin and a little bit lanky, but his shoulders were broader and his back was a lot more muscular than Prompto would have expected it to be. His hair was even different. Long and dark, hanging down below the base of his skull and lightly brushing against the collar of his black suit jacket. No, from the back, Prompto never would have been able to figure out who the hell it was.

When he turned around, though, it was completely unmistakable. The shape of his face, the slope of his chin, the dark gray-blue of his eyes... it had to be. It was.

Noctis Caelum had only managed to get _more_ gorgeous with time. As a teenager—hell, even the last time Prompto saw him at twenty years old—he'd been gorgeous. Breathtaking. Pale-skinned and blue-eyed and pouty-lipped gorgeous. Now? Now, Prompto felt like he could almost hit his ass on the floor. His skin was still pale and his eyes were still dark gray-blue and his lips were still pouted, but there was something different there, now. Something dignified. Something that had Prompto completely and totally frozen in place.

What in the hell was he even doing here? Noctis was so much better than this place. Even back then, Noctis was better than this place. Smarter. The valedictorian of their class. Cooler. One of those people that Prompto expected to see on the cover of magazines. He was destined for success. So, why in the world was he back _here_?

Admittedly, Prompto was torn. What was he supposed to do? It wasn't like he could just cross the space between him and say hi. It had been seven years since they'd talked. Seven years since they'd even _looked_ at each other. Even _now_ , Noctis wasn't even looking at him. He was scanning the rest of the room, almost like he was searching for something. Scanning. Squinted. He waved in the direction of the teachers, but just as quickly, he started scanning the rest of the area again.

Then... he stopped. On Prompto. As Noctis' eyes grew wide, Prompto's heart dropped down to his stomach.

There was an interesting shift of emotions on Noctis' face. His expression went from shocked, to appraising, to even _more_ shocked, to... smiling. By the Six, he was smiling and his smile was even _more_ gorgeous now than it had been back in the day. Just as quickly as his smile appeared, though, it faded into nerves and he glanced down at the floor for a couple of seconds. Doubt. Even after all of these years, Noctis still had the same little furrow in his brows when he was doubting himself. When he wasn't sure of something or when he was nervous or... whatever. He was doubting himself. Why was he doubting himself?

Well, probably for the same reason that Prompto was doubting himself, if he was honest with himself. Prompto blinked slowly, glancing down at the floor as well, and trying to convince himself to close the space between them. It was Noctis. It wasn't like it was Fortis or Emilia or any of the other random people in the room that he didn't want to see. Right? It was... it was _probably_ the only person he _did_ want to see. So, why did he feel like he was frozen in place?

Lifting his eyes from the floor, he turned them toward Noctis once more and was surprised when their gazes met yet again. Noctis was looking right at him reflecting, a nervousness that Prompto only saw in the mirror back at him. That was... that was surprising. Prompto blinked, trying to will his body to move and close the distance between them. Instead, though, all he could do was quirk up a tiny, nervous smile. He raised his hand in a nervous half-wave, then smoothed it through the mess of hair on top of his head. The motion tugged at the hair in the ponytail, and he winced at that feeling.

When he looked back at Noctis, he saw his old friend grinning a soft, amused grin. And then he moved. Closer to Prompto. Oh Gods, he was coming over here.

That was what Prompto wanted, sure, but he thought that maybe he'd have a little bit more time to prepare himself. Time to think of what to say. Time to come up with some kind of sitcom-worthy story to tell his old friend about all the wonderful and magnificent things he'd done with his life. Something other than saying that he was just a nine-to-fiver and a single dad. He didn't have that time, though, because Noctis was almost there. Noctis was almost in front of him, and he had absolutely no plan for how to open the conversation.

In the back of his mind, he found himself wondering if maybe Aranea and Cindy knew that Noctis was going to be here all along. If they sent him here, knowing that this would happen. How, though? It wasn't like _they'd_ seen him recently, either. Ignis and Gladio could have told them, but other than that, Prompto wasn't sure how they could possibly have known. Even if they had, it seemed like the type of thing that they'd usually have cleared with him first. Braced him for. Gotten him ready for the shellshock that he was feeling, down to his very core.

_Oh Gods, why did I let Aranea convince me to-_

All thoughts completely and totally drained from his mind, though, when Noctis reached him. Reached him, stepped into his space, and wrapped his arms around Prompto's shoulders in a warm, familiar hug. A hug that Prompto hadn't felt for years, and worried that he'd never feel again. It was hilarious—in a way that wasn't even funny at all—actually, the way that Prompto felt himself sinking into that embrace, just the way he always had as a teenager. Noctis hugged him, and even though they hadn't seen each other in years, it was _still_ just like it had been back then. All of his anxiety faded into the back corner of his mind, forgotten for the moment, replaced with comfort. Warmth. Replaced with Noctis.

Because of that, Prompto couldn't resist raising his arms and wrapping them around Noctis in return.

"Hey..." Noctis murmured against his shoulder.

There was a shakiness in his friend's voice that Prompto didn't expect, but honestly, his voice wasn't exactly the steadiest, either, when he replied. "Hey," Prompto parroted, even in _tone_ , honestly, as he tightened his grip around Noctis' waist.

If nothing else happened tonight, even if they stopped talking here and went back to being awkwardly distant from one another? Prompto could at least take comfort in the fact that _this_ —that being in Noctis' arms right then, just like they always used to—made all of the anxious buildup feel completely worthwhile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of my attempt to reconnect with myself as a writer. ♥ I've been a little 'out of it' lately, with a general decrease in feedback, and some nasty feedback in what remains. So! I'm going to take a short break from what was stressing me out and try to write something just for fun!


	2. When We Were Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i was so scared to face my fears_  
>  _nobody told me that you'd be here_  
>  _and i swore you moved overseas_  
>  _that's what you said, when you left me..._  
> [when we were young](https://open.spotify.com/track/7IWkJwX9C0J7tHurTD7ViL?si=YDtXIMjLSf2ELNQHIo7S6Q) ;; adele

"You look good."

Prompto felt his cheeks heating up at the sound of Noctis' mumbled words against his shoulder. It wasn't anything weird. Wasn't an "I missed you" or an "I'm so happy you're here" or anything like that, but in a weird way, it didn't need to be. Seven years may have been a long time, but not long enough to change Noctis completely. One of the things that hadn't changed at all was the way his voice sounded when he was trying to hold it together. Like this. This was definitely 'holding back emotions' Noctis, but it was okay, because Prompto was, too.

Honestly, before he came here, he'd been completely prepared to spend the whole time thinking of Noctis, the whole time talking to people he didn't care about and missing Noctis. Not _seeing_ Noctis. To say that he wasn't pleasantly surprised to be wrong would have been a bold-faced lie.

Slowly, Prompto backed out of the hug, but kept his hands on Noctis' middle while he took him in from up close. By the Six, he was... he was perfect. Not at all what Prompto had envisioned him looking like as he got older, but almost better. Handsome. Slightly more rugged looking, though he still held that charm that he'd always had. The gentleness in his eyes and the soft curve of his lips. It was a lot to take at once, and before Prompto could stop himself, he leaned back in and hugged Noctis again. Maybe it was more of a way to prove to himself that this was real; that it was really happening. Or maybe it was just because the hug felt amazing. Whatever it was, he couldn't stop himself.

Noctis hugged him back again, and Prompto mumbled, "so do you, man," against his shoulder, his voice still wobbling as he clung to his old friend like he'd just vanish into thin air at any second.

Honestly, they probably stayed like that for too long. Hugging each other, not saying a word. Prompto thought that maybe it should have been awkward somehow. Should have. It wasn't, though. The only thing that felt awkward at the moment, was exactly how hard and fast his heart was racing in his chest, just from a simple hug. Noctis even smelled the same. Like the same cologne he'd always worn in high school.

"I'm surprised you're here," Noctis countered when he backed up a little bit. He still didn't release Prompto from the hug, though. Instead, he just kept his arms around Prompto's shoulders loosely, meeting his eyes and trailing his _own_ eyes along Prompto's face. To his hair, to his shoulders and his neck. "I mean... didn't think you'd want to see any of these people."

A laugh—more of a choked, emotional sound than anything—escaped Prompto's throat as he watched Noctis' eyes roam along his face. "Wasn't gonna. Aranea and Cindy made me, pretty much." His voice was quiet as he continued. "Didn't really wanna see any of them. They're still actin' like they did ten years ago, y'know? Hangin' out in their groups. Not bothering with anyone but their buddies, and..." He made a face, shaking his head no. "No thanks, y'know?" Of course Noctis knew. Noctis always knew.

As if proving that point, Noctis nodded and chuckled softly. "Tried to say hi to Emilia, you know, start up a casual conversation and see if she'd grown up at all? She didn't even remember my name."

"She knows your name. Everyone knows your name, dude," Prompto mused. "You've been in all those galleries, and-"

Shrugging a shoulder, Noctis chuckled awkwardly, "well, if she remembered my name, she didn't want me to know about it, so whatever." He finally let his arms fall to his sides and looked Prompto over again. "I'm glad, though. That Aranea made you come. Would've sucked if Ignis and Gladio made me come for nothing, you know?" He stuffed his hands into his pockets, before shrugging his head to the side and grinning.

Ignis and Gladio made him come. Aranea and Cindy made Prompto come. Prompto couldn't help but laugh a little bit as he straightened out his tie. It had gotten a little bit wrinkled in the hug, not that Prompto cared. "Get the feeling we were set up?" Prompto asked with a little half-smile. Not that he cared in the least, of course.

It didn't look like Noctis did either, though, because he shrugged an eyebrow and then tilted his head to the side. "All they'd've really had to do was tell me that you were coming, though. Then, y'know... I wouldn't've fought 'em as much."

"You wanted to see me?"

The look of surprise on Noctis' face at Prompto's question took Prompto off guard. After staring blankly at Prompto for a few seconds, Noctis just looked down at the ground sheepishly, then huffed a nervous laugh. "I guess that's a fair question. We haven't exactly..." He paused, wet his lips, then looked back up at Prompto's face. "Yeah. I wanted to see you. A lot."

Blinking, Prompto shook his head. "No! No, I didn't mean... I didn't mean it like that, Noct, okay?" he asked. "I meant, like... you could be anywhere you want right now, and you really just wanted to... y'know, see me?" Placing a hand on his chest to express his shock at that discovery, he raised one shoulder in a nervous shrug.

Maybe, in a way, he had meant it in the way that Noctis said, though. Not as an insult to Noctis or anything. Prompto knew that his life was busy now. Chaotic. Crazy. He was all over the place, all the time, and he was always really, really busy. Always in demand in the art world. So, yeah. Prompto _was_ surprised that his friend wanted to waste his time hanging around with someone he hadn't seen in seven years. Someone he didn't even really have any ties to anymore. Mostly, though, he'd meant it to say that Noctis could go anywhere and do anything he wanted. That someone like Prompto shouldn't have even registered on his radar anymore.

Noctis nodded once, his lips forming into a sort of nervous smile as he pushed some dark hair from his face and met Prompto's eye. "Yeah. I mean... of course. I... I missed you, dude."

The words brought a rush of heat to Prompto's cheeks as he swallowed back a lump that sprang to his throat unannounced. "I... me too," he admitted.

After a couple of seconds worth of awkward silence, Noctis met Prompto's eyes with a soft, conspiratorial grin and then glanced around the room. "So. There anyone here you want to talk to?" he asked, pointing over his shoulder as he turned to glance back at Prompto, trying to conceal a sneaky grin.

Prompto arched an eyebrow. "You kidding me, dude?" he asked incredulously.

When Noctis laughed in reply, a familiar fluttering of butterflies floated up from the pit of Prompto's stomach. He tugged one hand from his pocket and held it out to Prompto, then nodded his head toward the door, musing, "what do you say? Ditch this place? Go hang somewhere better?"

The exact same words that Noctis had spoken to him at their senior prom, when they'd ditched the dance and gone to the roof to hang out together. The way he held his hand out, too, for Prompto to take, was the exact same as it had been that night, and Prompto couldn't help the smile that spread its way across his face. He extended his own hand, placing it in Noctis' and nodding his head.

"Wouldn't be too hard to get better than this," Prompto offered, his own words from that night, as he laced their fingers together and allowed Noctis to take the lead.

It was... almost exactly like it was ten years ago. The pair of them burst into the hallway from the gym, sprinting past people who had congregated to talk there. A few people stared, and Prompto, just like in high school, couldn't bring himself to care. He glanced over his shoulder at them for the briefest of seconds, then followed Noctis up a flight of stairs. Up a second flight of stairs, and then down the hall. Up a final flight of stairs, and the pair of them stopped for a couple of seconds. That, Prompto guessed, was the main difference between running like this as a pair of teenagers and a pair of adults. Prompto got tired a little bit faster.

Noctis, too, was gasping for air, chuckling softly at Prompto as he looked across the hall at the door to the roof. "I was tryin' to recreate the way we did this at senior prom. Remember?"

Prompto nodded. "Yeah. Guess we didn't account for that bein' ten years ago, though," he gasped, watching Noctis for a couple more seconds and then smirking. "That's okay, though. Just means I get to flip the script on you." This time, he held his hand out like he was going to lead.

The way Noctis looked at him was... hard to describe. Like he was the only person in the world that mattered at the moment, which was kind of weird. They were pretty much just strangers now, weren't they? Regardless of how Prompto _felt_ in his chest, they were pretty much strangers. They didn't know each other anymore or anything... but... maybe... maybe they weren't strangers, though. The lopsided smirk that crossed Noctis' face right then was familiar. Pleasant in a way that Prompto never anticipated. A fluttering feeling moved around in his stomach, and he found himself realizing that—after seeing Noctis for only five minutes—his feelings were just as strong now as they'd ever been.

As Noctis twined their fingers together again, Prompto huffed a gentle chuckle and then tugged him toward the door. They didn't run this time. Just walked. The pair of them were both still struggling to catch their breath after the long run they'd taken up the stairs, after all. When they reached the door, he turned his head and glanced at Noctis. "You think Dave still keeps it unlocked? Not like we've been here in ten years."

"Only one way to find out," Noctis mused, pressing his hand against the push bar that opened the door. It hissed against the pressure, one of those weird air-pressurized hisses that doors always made, and then opened slowly.

With a grin over at Noctis, Prompto picked his pace up again and tugged Noctis up the stairs. It wasn't quite a run, but maybe it didn't need to be. The reunion had just started, so it wasn't like they were in any rush. The pair of them stepped out into the hot summer air, and Prompto couldn't help but feel another wave of nostalgia. Walking out here, holding Noctis' hand, looking at his friend's dark eyes... gods, it was perfect. It was... it was exactly what he'd wished for, for the first few years that he and Noctis were apart.

Noctis immediately tipped his head up to look at the sky, just like he'd done ten years ago. Some things would never change. Then, he turned his head to look at Prompto, and murmured, "can you believe it's been ten years since we graduated?" in a soft voice.

Huffing a soft laugh, while he still struggled to catch his breath a little bit, Prompto nodded. "I can, actually. Well, I can and I can't. Some days, it feels like we're back here. You know? Feels like it was just yesterday when we spent every waking moment together, when we walked around after school, all over the city. When, y'know. We were a team." At that, his face heated up, and he turned to look away from Noctis, to take his own glance up at the sky. "Other days, though? Kinda feels like it's been forever. Feels like a lifetime ago, and I feel like a totally different person from the one who felt like he owned the city with you."

The truth of the matter, too, was that Prompto _was_ a different person, sure. In a lot of ways, though… he wasn't. Noctis had the world at his fingertips. He had everything. Could go anywhere and do anything. Prompto, though? Prompto had gone from a dreamer with wild plans… to a townie. He was still stuck here. Well, stuck was probably an overstatement. The whole reason that he was still here was because of Venia. Because this was where Venia had been dropped at his doorstep, where all of Venia's family was. It wouldn't have been fair of him to move her away, and honestly, he really couldn't afford to. Aranea and Cindy always told him that he didn't have to pay rent, but he _did_. He couldn't just live in their house for free. He couldn't mooch.

Rent. Buying all of the things that Venia needed, plus giving her a stable home and a good life with family... as much as Prompto _wanted_ to take Venia around the world and have it all at both of their fingertips, he couldn't. The lack of stability wasn't fair to her.

"I know what you mean," Noctis admitted. "Still... it, uh... it feels... y'know. Good. To be here with you, I mean."

Prompto looked over at Noctis in surprise. "Yeah. Me too," he admitted.

Too good, honestly. Like he was a kid again, and like the pair of them could take on the world, just like they always had when they were younger. It was only then that Prompto realized that he was still holding onto Noctis' hand, so he cleared his throat, let his hand fall down to his side, and walked up to the balustrade on the edge of the roof to lean against it.

Up until this point, nostalgia had blinded him to exactly how long it had been since the pair of them had actually talked to each other. The last time they talked, it was in a feeble attempt to make plans. Noctis was in town for something involving his dad. He'd never really given details, honestly. They'd texted, talking about getting together to have a drink or maybe just go for a walk or watch movies together or something. It was complicated, however, by the fact that Venia had just been dropped on Prompto's doorstep, and that he still had no idea how to be a father. He'd just picked up his second job at the department store, and he was working almost eighty hour weeks, plus trying to make sure that he still had time for an infant Venia, and every single plan they tried to make had fallen through.

Noctis joined him at the balustrade, leaning against it a couple of feet away and staring down at the pavement three floors below them. "Is it, y'know... lame if I ask how you've been?"

Turning his head to glance at Noctis, Prompto chuckled a soft, sheepish note and turned to glance up at the sky. "A little," he admitted. "But you know I don't mind lame." He puffed a breath out through his lips, and murmured, "I've been okay. Busy. Working a lot. Spending what little time I have left at home..." _with my daughter,_ he added in his head.

Why didn't he say it? It was legitimately just three words, and it wasn't like he was even _ashamed_ to have Venia. She was honestly the brightest part of his life. It wasn't even like Venia's mother was actually in his life, either, so it wasn't even like _that_ was something to worry about. Noctis wouldn't judge him. So, why didn't he just tell Noctis about her? It wasn't like Noctis would say anything. Right? Prompto distinctly remembered Noctis having this grand fantasy of a huge family. Two kids, a house with a white picket fence... though now that he had this amazing, fanciful life, Prompto couldn't imagine that he still felt the same way.

Before Noctis could ask anything else, Prompto half-smiled as he turned to glance at Noctis. "What about you? Mr. Lap Of Luxury. Surprised you didn't want to stay in there and tell everyone how awesome you're doing," he mused, pondering leaning in to nudge Noctis but thinking better of it.

Especially after seeing how Noctis just leaned forward against the balustrade, shrugged his head to the side, and huffed a soft laugh. "Nah. It's... it's nice." Finally, he managed a smile and smoothed a hand through his hair. It fell right back down into place, shrouding his eyes in shadow and making Prompto curious as to what was hiding under those words. "It's cool, you know? Being able to get paid for the doodles that people always thought were weird. But... I don't wanna stay in there and talk to the people who _thought_ they were weird. I'd rather be around the person who always challenged me. Showed me new things to draw."

That coaxed another smile to Prompto's face, and he folded his hands together, looking down at the grass on the school's football field. "I mean, you'd never get into art school if you just kept drawing our superhero personas," he teased, thinking back to the comic book that Noctis always said that he wanted to draw.

"I started that, you know," Noctis mused, turning his head to look at Prompto. "A couple years after I moved out to Altissia? I started drawing it. Wasn't the same without the insane storyboards we came up with together."

Prompto chuckled softly. "They were pretty crazy, weren't they?" he asked. "Nightlight climbing all the way to the top of a building to scan the city like Ezio, and then Quicksilver rushing in to hold off the danger until they could both take it on together." They'd plotted out crazy stories for those two characters. Prompto would take pictures of things that he saw that made him think of a story, Noctis would draw it...

Simpler times. Times when they didn't have to worry about anything.

Noctis laughed a little bit. "That was the one I started drawing. Where Nightlight went all the way to the top of the Insomnia Tower to see what trouble they could get into—er, stop—that night." He turned around, leaning his lower back against the balustrade and then resting his elbows against the top of it. He tilted his head back, glancing up at the sky. "You ever open that photography studio?" he asked nonchalantly.

A bitter laugh escaped, and Prompto shook his head no. "Other stuff came up, you know? It was either not a good time, I didn't have the money or the time... one thing or another never lined up and I just..." He shrugged.

It wasn't like he didn't want to. Gods, opening up a photography studio, working with pictures... or even if it wasn't a studio and he just worked as a freelance photographer? It was still his big dream. Still what he wanted to do more than anything else—other than providing Venia with a good life, anyway—but it wasn't in the cards. He couldn't justify it. Not when freelance photography would take him to whatever corner of the world he needed to be at, away from Venia, and it wasn't even a fully stable career. Heaving a sigh, he shrugged his head to the side and glanced down at his twined hands.

"Just could never justify it, you know?"

Noctis frowned, but nodded his head. "Life's what happens when you try making plans, huh?" he asked, his voice a little bit sad as he let his eyes trail down to Prompto's hands.

Something like that, yeah. Prompto huffed a breath, nodding and casting his eyes over to look at Noctis again. "What about you, though? Your life's gotta be a lot more interesting than mine. Gallery openings and paintings selling to big stars and whatever else? Tell me more about _that_ , huh?" he asked, trying to keep things conversational, and not let talk delve too far into that same old story about dreams and goals changing.

"I mean..." Noctis answered, sounding a little more dismal than Prompto would have expected, "that's pretty much what it is, you know? Gallery openings. Big sales. Always somewhere to travel and someone to meet with." With a monotone huff of laughter, Noctis shrugged his head to the side. "It's cool. My life. I'm not saying I'm... I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, because I know I'm lucky and everything. I can only imagine how it sounds to you."

Prompto shrugged a shoulder. "I know you well enough to know that you're not like... that you wouldn't say something like that without reason." There was a little bit of surprise, of appraisal, in his eyes as he looked Noctis over.

As Prompto looked, he tried to search for telltale signs of emotion, of what Noctis was feeling or what he was thinking, but it was hard to tell. Not because Prompto had forgotten. He had a weary, tense look in his eyes. Still the same as it was when they were younger and he was upset or nervous about something. When he wanted to say what he was thinking, but was worried about how someone would take it. That, Prompto realized, was the surest sign that things were different now. Years ago, Noctis never would have hesitated to tell Prompto what he was thinking. Usually, Prompto didn't even have to ask. Noctis just came out with it, explained everything, and they worked through it together. Selfishly, a piece of Prompto missed that.

"So, what's wrong, then?" Prompto asked plainly.

For a few seconds, Noctis just laughed softly and quietly. It wasn't a humor-filled laughter; more sad, worried. He swallowed nervously, shrugging his head to the side and keeping his eyes on the sky when he said, "it's not necessarily _wrong_ or anything. I like Altissia. I like my life. Like drawing and painting and having people appreciate my work. I just... gods this sounds so stupid," he mumbled.

Prompto half-smiled. "When have we ever cared about sounding stupid in front of each other?" he asked.

Laughing, Noctis pointed a finger-gun at him and nodded his head. "Fair point. It's just not what I thought it'd be, you know? I knew I'd be busy, if I ever took off. I knew that there would always be somewhere to travel and everything. I just didn't expect Eos to be so big. Or quite so..." He paused, lowering his voice to barely a mumble when he finished, "lonely."

Lonely. Prompto frowned. At first, it was a little bit surprising. Noctis lived in a way that probably had hundreds of people walking in and out of his life, all the time. Too many people to really be lonely. The more he thought on it, though, the more it made sense. Back in high school, Noctis had never really been comfortable in big groups like that. He'd always preferred smaller groups, opting to stick with Prompto, and with Ignis and Gladio when they were around. Prompto was sure that his friend had developed _some_ thick skin, but it was pretty likely that he was still guarded. That he didn't like to let people in. So, yeah. It made sense for him to be lonely.

A sad sort of sense, but sense all the same. Noctis was a good person. At least the Noctis that Prompto remembered, was the _best_ person that Prompto knew. So, provided that he was the same person? He definitely didn't deserve to be lonely. Hell, even if he wasn't the same person... no one deserved to be lonely.

"It's hard to imagine you lonely, though..." Even despite everything Prompto had just been thinking, it didn't seem right for Noctis not to have found another best friend.

Noctis chuckled bitterly, fidgeting so that his hip was leaning against the balustrade and then shrugging his shoulders. "Maybe for you. 'Cause it was always easy around you, y'know?"

Prompto _didn't_ know, though. Easy? What was easy? Well, okay, that wasn't fair. Everything always seemed easy between them, he guessed. Talking. Ignoring what other people said. Enjoying life. It always seemed easier when they were together. Even now, even after he'd moved on and built new friendships, nothing was ever quite as easy as it had been back when they were joined at the hip. He raked his teeth over his lip and then chuckled. For someone who was trying to claim that he didn't know what Noctis was saying, he sure seemed to understand it pretty well. So, he just nodded. It _was_ always easy for them.

"But..." Noctis laughed a bitter note again. "Not with other people. Like, that's not to say I don't have friends. I had and have friends. And they're great. But..." Shrugging his head to the side, he cast Prompto a sidelong glance, like that finished his sentence.

It kind of did. Prompto sort of felt the same way. He had friends, too. He had a lot of friends. None of them, though, made life as _full_ as Noctis had. The only person who _did_ was Venia. Prompto met Noctis' eyes. _I should really tell him about her,_ he thought to himself. But how? Now wasn't really the time for that, was it?

Noctis shook his head hard, blinking and smiling a nervous half-smile. "That's not something we should worry about tonight, though. Like, you don't... you don't have to worry about that ever, even. It's not like..." He clamped down hard on his lower lip and brushed his fingers through his hair. "Not like you can do anything about it. You've got, y'know, your own life now."

Yeah, he did. He had his own life, and it was good. He had Venia and Aranea and Cindy and that was awesome. He loved them. Aranea and Cindy were his sisters, and they were Venia's aunts and the four of them—plus Loqi, whenever Prompto's _actual_ brother decided to come and visit—were a family. Still, somewhere in Prompto's gut, it always sort of felt like something was missing. Like something wasn't quite right. He'd never been sure what it was, though.

"I mean, yeah. I do. But..." From the corner of his eye, he glanced over toward Noctis and shrugged his head. "Just 'cause I have my own life and you have yours? Doesn't mean they can't cross paths, right? Unless, like... you don't want them t-"

Before he could even finish, Noctis shook his head no. "No! I mean, yeah! I..." he stammered, trailing off and clearing his throat. "That... that wasn't what I was saying at all, man. I wasn't saying I didn't want them to, I mean. I just... I dunno. I guess I thought, y'know, that I burned a bridge when I fell off the face of the earth to you however long ago." The regret in his tone was almost like a physical aura around him.

Honestly, Prompto had wondered that himself for a little while. It wasn't like he was _mad_ about it. Life happened. Life always happened. Sometimes it was for the best, like Venia coming into his life five years ago. Sometimes, though? Sometimes it forced its way in and pushed between friends who always thought they'd be side by side forever. Like with him and Noctis. There wasn't anything saying that they couldn't find their way back there again, though, right? While they were different people, while they'd both changed a lot, they were still the same in their core. Their core had been so strong back in the day that Prompto _desperately_ wanted that feeling back.

"Couldn't burn that bridge even if you wanted to, man," Prompto chuckled, finally looking Noctis square in the eye and puffing out a soft and slow breath. "You wouldn't believe how many times I always went back to all those photo albums I filled with pics of us and the crazy stuff we used to do."

Noctis smirked. "You too, huh?" he asked.

With a laugh, Prompto scratched the top of his head. That was true. He'd given Noctis copies of almost all of those pictures back in the day. Whatever he had, Noctis probably had, too. "I think my favorite ones are the ones at the arcade. You getting high scores. You schooling that one kid who dared to challenge you to Space Race 1000..." he smirked.

"Or when we went to the mini-golf course and tried to climb to the top of the windmill when no one was looking? You asked me to hold your camera, and I got that picture of you halfway up the wall, being yanked down by the security guard, remember?" Noctis had the same old Noctis smile on his face, warm and excited, and it made Prompto's chest flutter.

Prompto remembered, because that was another one of his favorites. That whole roll of film from that night, honestly. The trip to the ice cream shop after that, the selfie on the fire escape outside of Prompto's bedroom... he laughed again. "How is it possible that something can feel like forever ago and feel like it was just yesterday at the same time?" he mused, somewhat sadly.

In an equally sad tone, Noctis mused, "I ask myself that all the time, dude."

Silence enveloped them all over again, and Prompto cast him a sidelong glance, taking in his posture. Open, but defensive at the same time. Like he wanted to say more, like he wanted to open up and tell Prompto everything, but he was nervous. That drove the point home all the more, honestly, how long it had been since the last time they were together. It also made Prompto decide something.

Willing himself past his anxiety, Prompto raised his chin in an attempt to get Noctis' attention, and watched as his old friend turned to meet his eyes. That face. Gods. He could bend mountains to his will. He'd always been like that, and Prompto honestly wouldn't have expected him to have gotten any less attractive with time. All the same, that made it a little harder to will himself past his anxiety. He had to, though. For Noctis. Noctis would've done it for him.

So, pulling in a shaky and nervous breath, Prompto turned his head back toward Noctis and quirked a curious tilt of his head. "S-so. Um... how long're you in town for?"

There was a little hesitation, before Noctis responded, shrugging. "Long as I want to be, honestly," he mused.

"Wait... really? You're not like... you don't have a meeting, or a deal to close, or a gallery to open, or anything like that?" Prompto couldn't help but blink in surprise as he regarded Noctis carefully. That wasn't what he wanted to say, no. But he was surprised. Taken off guard, and wondering exactly how Noctis was able to take time away from his work. Or whatever.

Noctis frowned, and shook his head. "I'm uh..." He paused, smoothing a hand through his hair and glancing down at the floor. "I'm taking a little break. In a little bit of a slump, and... and you didn't ask to hear about that, but... yeah. I'm taking time off. Kinda wanted to come back home and visit everyone, so..."

A slump. Prompto frowned as he glanced out at the parking lot again. He guessed that was a way that photography was easier than drawing or painting. He didn't need to look for things to take pictures of. Scenery. Weird things that struck his fancy. Venia. Gods did he have _so many_ pictures of Venia. More than the average parent, honestly. With Noctis, with the way he drew—or at least the way Prompto remembered him drawing—he had to feel it. He had to believe what he was doing and feel it in his heart of hearts, before he could make it show up on any canvas or paper or wall or whatever he was drawing on.

With that in mind, a slump made sense. If he wasn't feeling it, or if he was feeling lonely, it would definitely start to color his work.

"So... you're here as long as you want to be, then..." Prompto repeated.

Noctis nodded.

Again, Prompto pushed out against the wall of anxiety and smoothed a hand through his hair, pushing his bangs out from his face. "W-well. Do you want to hang out some? While you're in town, I mean? Y'know. Make up for all those times we tried before but couldn't quite do it? I mean... I don't have a _ton_ of free time-" In fact, free moments were hard to find, really- "but I could make some." _For you._

The little smile on Noctis' face was payment enough for Prompto, for pushing back against his anxiety. Noctis cast him a sidelong glance, before looking out at the parking lot and nodding his head a couple of times. "I think that sounds like more than enough of a reason for me to stick around for a little while," he mumbled.

Prompto couldn't help but let his cheeks heat up a little bit, as he re-memorized the smile on Noctis' face. Just the same as always, but a little bit more somber. Prompto glanced down at his hip, where his camera hung, and hummed a note of laughter. Now he understood why Venia had insisted that he bring it. Honestly, it was probably a ploy from Aranea and Cindy. They had Venia ask, because they knew that Prompto would never say no to a suggestion like that coming from her. The tie and the pocket square were evidence enough for that.

"Hey."

"Huh?"

Before Noctis could even recover from the surprise of being addressed, though, Prompto raised his arm and threw it over Noctis' shoulders, raising his camera in the opposite hand. "Smile," Prompto told Noctis. He pointed the camera back at them, giving it a few seconds to flash, and giving Noctis a few seconds to realize what was going on.

As the flash went off, Prompto smiled at the camera, before turning it around—not moving his arm from around Noctis' shoulders, because it felt nice there—and looked at the resulting picture. The lights in the area were kind of dim, but the one behind them was strong enough for both silhouettes to show up clearly on the camera's screen. The pair of them smiling, the school's rooftop behind them. Prompto was pretty sure he had a shot just like that from ten or more years ago, sitting in his bedroom somewhere. As Prompto dropped his arm from around Noctis' shoulders, he smiled a little bit.

Okay. Maybe, _just_ maybe, Aranea and Cindy were right about all of this. _Maybe_ he was glad he came here tonight. Just a little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys' response to my first chapter took me totally off guard! It's been super tough to sit on this chapter for as long as I have because of it!!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! ❤


	3. Halfway Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i'm halfway home, and i tried running with the flow._  
>  _i'm halfway there. ain't it funny how everybody seems to care?_  
>  _i planned to get there around supper time;_  
>  _they're serving up bread and wine, all i needed was a sign..._  
> [halfway home](https://open.spotify.com/track/7jIOfVSTZWb2Qvr9KhA4r1) ;; jason mraz

Noctis hadn't even had to ask for Gladio and Ignis to tell him where Prompto worked. They'd given the information readily, and suggested that Noctis go to pick him up from work that evening. In fact, they'd more or less pushed him out the door. That part, though, was a little bit less surprising. They had plans that evening—some sort of dinner date to celebrate some excellent news that they hadn't shared yet—so they probably wanted to be alone a little bit sooner.

What _was_ surprising, though, was the discovery that Prompto was working two jobs, nearly eighty hours a week, with only one day off. Noctis wondered why he was working so much, too, but when he asked Ignis and Gladio, they seemed surprised that he didn't know already. _"Prompto will tell you why when he's ready,"_ was what Ignis had told him, but honestly, with the sheer amount of texts they'd been sending and phone calls they'd shared over the past week and a half since the reunion? If it was going to come up, it would have already. Right?

Maybe it was a little bit underhanded, going to Ignis and Gladio for information before getting the answers straight from Prompto. It wasn't like he hadn't tried, though. Throughout their conversations, Noctis had tried to get some sort of answer out of him, to no avail. Prompto would evade the subject and ask about where they were going or what they were doing when they got together. It wasn't like working at a grocery store was anything to be ashamed of, and neither was his second job at the department store. Maybe it wasn't exactly what he had always _dreamed of_ , but it was something.

To be honest, the fact that Prompto was so hesitant to be honest about his job kind of made Noctis want to find a place that was leasing in town, to co-sign on a lease for Prompto to have his studio. Not only would he not have to work eighty-hour weeks anymore, but he'd be doing what he had always wanted to. He was the best photographer that Noctis had ever known. The best _person_ Noctis had ever known. He'd be great if he tried to go pro, and he deserved it, too. Most of Noctis' best art was inspired by Prompto's photography, after all. Old memories, recreating them and trying to recapture the old feelings—the old freedom—that he felt when they were in those glory days. One of his best sellers was actually an old promise that he'd made to Prompto.

It was a picture that Prompto had taken when they'd gone on a vacation to one of the small islands off of Galdin Quay. On an island, just a few malms past Angelgard Island and about a third of the way out to Altissia, stood a resort that teenagers often went to on their summer vacations. Prompto and Noctis were fresh out of junior year, and they'd taken two weeks of their summer vacation to go there together.

Their last night there, they sat alone on a dock at the beach. Noctis fished, and Prompto snapped pictures of everything. Everything, including the perfect moment when the sun crested over the horizon and the sky was dark blue, but with a glint of orange right where it met with the ground in the distance. That night was the night that Noctis realized that he was in love with Prompto. The one secret that he'd always kept to himself.

Also, the one thing he always regretted keeping secret. Sometimes, he would think back to how close they were, and wonder if Prompto would have pushed as hard as he had for Noctis to leave town if he'd known. He would wonder exactly how different things would have been if he'd just been braver and _told_ Prompto about how he'd felt. How he _still_ kind of felt. It wasn't like Prompto's sexuality was a secret from Noctis. Noctis had been around when he'd dated both men and women. Prompto knew that Noctis exclusively dated men.

That wasn't the point, though. Nor was it where his mind should have been at the moment, honestly. Not at all. Noctis had promised Prompto that the first picture he ever painted would be of that photo. It was an easy promise for Noctis to keep, because it was his favorite photo that Prompto had ever taken. He'd sold it for almost eighty-thousand gil. It wasn't his most expensive sale, but it was his fondest one. His first one. And he felt that, maybe, he owed Prompto the money for his part of the work. Maybe, it was money that Prompto could use to open his studio.

Of course, Noctis was getting way ahead of himself now. The first thing he needed to do was find Prompto. So, he walked up to the front door of the Decimum Avenue Pink Anak grocery store.

It was funny. When Noctis and Prompto were growing up, they always poked fun at the tacky name of the grocery store. The manager had chased them out several times, because they would walk through and poke fun at the pastel pink shirts with pastel purple polka dots on them. As he looked around, he could see that those were no different. It was a sign of how much he'd grown, honestly, that the temptation to tease wasn't even there. No one here looked like they wanted to be here, and it really just made Noctis feel a little bit bad. Especially since _Prompto_ was one of the people they'd made fun of now.

A normal person probably would have gone to the customer service desk, in an attempt to have Prompto called to the front of the store, but Noctis was determined to completely take Prompto by surprise. So, he walked through the aisles of the store, undeniably excited at the prospect of seeing Prompto again.

The store looked largely the same. The same sections in the same places. The logos on the products had changed a little bit, but it still felt kind of like the same place. It was stupid, for a store to feel like home. It wasn't home, it was a _store_. Altissia and Tenebrae both had Pink Anak stores, so it wasn't like he hadn't seen one since leaving Insomnia or anything. Still, something about this one felt homier. Maybe it was because it was the one closest to his dad's apartment—the apartment he still hadn't been able to bring himself to sell, even after three years—and the one he'd always gone to as a kid. Whatever it was, Noctis couldn't help but smile a soft smile as he peered down the aisles.

Especially when he reached the juice and snack aisle and, wearing that same pastel pink smock with purple polka dots, he found the very person he was looking for. Funny how even something that goofy didn't look half as bad on Prompto. Or maybe it did, but Noctis was just blinded by the fact that it was Prompto. It didn't really matter, honestly.

All that mattered was the fact that Prompto stood halfway down the aisle, tapping his foot to the top forty song on the radio and stocking the shelves with some glass bottles of grape juice. At the very least, he looked happy at the moment. Just the sight of the smile in his profile was enough to make Noctis smile in turn. For a few seconds, he found himself wondering if maybe this whole thing had been a good idea. They were supposed to get together when Prompto got out of work. They had a vague plan to meet up in front of the mini-golf course, which should have been enough on its own, but Noctis was eager. He couldn't wait. So, before he could talk himself out of it any further, he smoothed a hand through his hair, pulled in a breath, and started down the aisle.

"Prom?" Noctis called, announcing his presence and trying to get his friend's attention at the same time.

The next moment seemed to happen in slow motion and at super speed all at once. Prompto sucked in a sharp breath and whirled around, losing his grip on the bottle of grape juice in his hand when he caught sight of Noctis. It plummeted to the floor quickly, bursting into an explosion of glass and purple. The juice splashed up, covering Prompto's slacks and reaching up to his smock. A large splash of juice soared up to come into contact with Noctis' shirt, too, as well as the bottoms of his pants. Prompto stood, blinking from behind his glasses for a couple of seconds, barely even registering the spill.

When their surroundings finally registered, Prompto exhaled slowly, glanced down at the floor, then back at Noctis, and murmured, "s-sorry! I didn't... I wasn't... you just surprised me, and... what're you doing here?"

Noctis clamped down on his lower lip and ticked his head sideways in a shrug. "I, uh... Specs and the Big Guy told me where you worked. You said over text that you got out in a little while, so I..." The plan had been to pick him up, then go to hit the town like they always used to. Now, though, he wondered if it was a good idea at all.

"O-oh. Um... hang on a sec, okay? I... I gotta go call cleanup and..." Prompto paused, "and then see when the nighttime manager gets here, and... and..." He trailed off, red flooding his cheeks as he walked down to a pillar in the center of the aisle with a phone attached to it.

After an announcement calling for 'cleanup on aisle six,' Prompto slowly turned back toward Noctis, his whole face as red as a tomato. He clamped down tightly on his lower lip, raked his hand through his hair, and finally met Noctis' eye. Now that Noctis was looking at him head-on, the bad day he'd had was pretty clearly mapped out on his face. There was a dripping coffee stain on Prompto chest, a red stain that could have been pasta sauce or ketchup or something on his shoulder, and his hair was falling out of the small ponytail that it was tied in behind his head.

As bad as it seemed like his day had been, Noctis never would have known through the texts they'd been sending. Prompto seemed like his usual, upbeat self. He sent texts with way too many emoticons like he usually did, sounded cheerful and happy just like he always did. Honestly, he gave no indication that he was anything but thrilled about everything going on. Then again, Noctis hadn't really known much at all. Nothing about where Prompto worked until Ignis and Gladio told him, nothing about what in his life was making him have to work eighty-hour weeks. It explained why he looked so tired, though. Now and at the reunion.

Swallowing nervously when Prompto stepped over a small pile of glass that his spill created, he raked his teeth over his lip. "S-sorry, I-"

"Hey. No. I was... I was the one who jumped you. Surprised you. I didn't expect-"

Prompto shook his head. "I didn't expect _you_ ," he chuckled awkwardly, smoothing a hand through his hair and catching his hair tie on the way through. What was tied fell down around his neck, and Prompto quickly busied himself with retying it into its ponytail. Glancing down at himself, he huffed a nervous breath as he turned to look back up at Noctis. "If I did, I'd've worn a lot less grape juice. And probably have put my contacts in." He pointed to his eyes.

Shrugging, Noctis mused, "I always liked you in glasses, anyway."

"True," Prompto smirked, in spite of everything. "You were always tryin' to get me to wear them more often, actually. I have to wear them at work, though. I-"

Before Prompto got a chance to finish his sentence, a second employee appeared and offered Prompto a wave. "Grape juice spill?" he asked.

Prompto nodded. "Sorry, Talcott. Any word from Crowe yet?"

"She just got here. Before you called me in, she was tellin' me to come get you, and-" The kid, who looked to still be in high school, paused when he caught sight of Noctis. "Oh. You got grape juice on a customer..." he mumbled.

Laughing, Noctis shook his head. "Not a customer. A friend. It's alright, it was my fault, anyway." He flashed an attempt at a reassuring smile at Prompto.

Except, Prompto didn't meet his eye. He stared nervously at the mess on the floor as Talcott cleaned it up, then flicked his eyes up to not-quite-meet Noctis'. Embarrassment, Noctis recognized. As much as he wanted to reassure Prompto that everything was fine, he didn't get a chance before Prompto insisted that he "wait for me in the parking lot? I... I gotta go make a note of all the stuff that the grape juice hit and... I'll be about ten minutes. Okay? Maybe fifteen. I don't do this, the owner's gonna kill me, so..."

Noctis couldn't help but feel a little bit embarrassed himself, but he nodded his head and clamped down hard on one side of his mouth. As Prompto turned to leave, Noctis glanced at the high school kid as he swept up some of the glass. It probably would have made sense for Noctis to help him—it probably would have been the right thing to do—but Noctis couldn't help but feel like his pride was bruised a little bit. So, he mumbled an apology under his breath, turned on his heel, and headed to the front. Before he left, though, he grabbed and paid for a bag of gysahl chips and a bottle of the flavored water that Prompto had always liked. A peace offering and a desperate attempt to push past the awkwardness he'd almost definitely created.

There was a line of benches a few feet away from the store, in plain view of the door so that Prompto couldn't possibly miss Noctis when he left. As he settled in, he leaned back against the cold brick wall of the outside of the store, tilted his head back, and puffed out an annoyed breath. That hadn't gone at all like he'd planned. It was supposed to be like something out of a sitcom in a _good_ way. Prompto excited to see him, asking what he was doing there... anything but dropping a bottle of grape juice.

It made sense, of course. Prompto hadn't been expecting him, and was probably running on the assumption that Noctis still had no idea where he was working. That... was probably weird. Noctis glanced down at the chips and drink in his hand, and suddenly felt like maybe it wasn't enough of an apology.

Summer's heat beat down around him, the sun baking him beneath the black button-down shirt and black jeans he wore. It was on its way down, though, and he had to hope that it would be all the way down before he and Prompto got to the mini-golf course. If Prompto even wanted to go with him anymore, anyway. Noctis wouldn't be surprised, with his luck, if he'd managed to screw _that_ up by showing up unannounced. Noctis rolled his sleeves up, revealing half of his forearm, and then gathered the drink that he'd bought for himself, twisting the top and taking a sip as he turned his head back toward the door.

The second he saw Prompto coming toward him, clothes still stained and hair still frazzled, he was on his feet and jogging over to meet his friend as quickly as his legs would take him. He stopped in front of Prompto, about a foot and a half away from the front door. Instantly, he wished that one of his hands was free so that he could move his hair back from his face. Twenty-seven years old, and suddenly he felt like a nervous, awkward kid again. Still, he pushed past it enough to speak.

"Sorry."

Except, his voice wasn't the only one speaking. Prompto, too, had apologized. When Noctis looked up, surprised by the second voice—surprised by _Prompto's_ voice—he was even more surprised to see that Prompto wasn't meeting his eye. There was a little more than embarrassment in his friend's expression, too. Sure, the embarrassment was there. There was plenty of it. Behind it though—or maybe in front of it—was a healthy dose of shame. Noctis frowned. Why was he ashamed? Hell, why was he even _embarrassed_? It wasn't like anything that had happened was actually his fault.

"What're you sorry for?" Noctis asked instead.

Prompto's attention snapped back up to him, blue eyes blinking behind his glasses. "I... think that's supposed to be my line," he murmured, amusement showing around the corners of his embarrassment. "I was the one who dropped juice and spilled it on you, right? 'Cause if not, I filled out the wrong form. If it was you, I need to fill out the 'you break it, you buy it' form. Not that I'd, y'know, charge you for breaking a small bottle of grape juice or anything. I just... it's..." He paused abruptly, laughed, smoothed a hand through his hair, and finally said, "I'm rambling."

Noctis chuckled. "'Cause you're nervous. I didn't forget about your nervous rambling habit. And you don't have to be nervous. It was... I was the one who jumped you. Right? Showed up without warning you, and..." He shrugged his head to the side.

With a shrug, Prompto murmured, "how'd you even find out where I work, anyway?" Even though the question probably should have been an accusation, Prompto had a tiny little grin on his face, like he was actually kind of _pleased_ that Noctis had found out.

"Ignis and Gladio told me. I told them that we were meeting. They asked why I hadn't picked you up, I said I didn't know where you worked, and they told me you were here today. That sounds... way creepier than it was supposed to, probably, but I swear I'm not stalking you or anything." Although, usually when someone had to announce that they weren't stalking, it was a surefire sign that they were, Noctis actually _wasn't_. He just hoped that Prompto believed him.

The growing grin on his face showed that, maybe, he did. "Should've figured they'd tell you," he mused.

Noctis nodded. "I mean, I almost didn't come even when they did tell me. I kinda figured that if you wanted me here, you'd have told me where you work so I could pick you up, but I was excited. About getting together. Thought maybe I could drive you home so you can get changed and-"

At that, Prompto's eyes shot open like curtains, and he blinked a couple of times at Noctis, before glancing across the parking lot. "Y-you? Drive me home, and..." He stammered, nervousness radiating from him in a wave as he turned to look back at Noctis. "I mean... are you sure? It's kinda out of the way. Not close to the mini-golf course, or anything, and I don't want to bother you or whatever." Pausing, he pointed over at his car where it was parked in the corner of the parking lot. "I have my car, too. And I can't... well, I _can_ leave it here, I just... you know. You know what I'm trying to say, right?"

Truth be told, Noctis really didn't. All he knew was that, "you're nervous about something. That's what I'm picking up..." he answered. He still knew Prompto well enough to know when he was nervous, and this was definitely that. "I don't know what it is, but if you really don't want me to drive you home, I can-"

Prompto cut him off with a shake of his head, as he stepped forward, a little bit closer to Noctis' space. "No, it's... it's not that I don't _want_ you to, it's like..." He paused, clenching his fists tightly and huffing a breath. "It's... I haven't been honest with you about something, Noct, and if you drive me home, you'll find out and you'll..." He could almost hear Prompto's voice finishing the sentence with _be mad_ , but that wasn't a problem. Wasn't something Prompto should have been worried about.

"I won't be mad, if that's what you're gonna say. C'mon, Prom," Noctis insisted, stepping forward and placing a hand on Prompto's shoulder. "It's not like you have to tell me everything about your life over text. And it's not like you were intentionally hiding something from me. It just... hadn't come up in conversation or something. Right?"

Shaking his head no, Prompto sighed. "It could have, actually. I _was_ intentionally hiding it from you, but not because it's something that I'm ashamed of. More because it's not something I can drop into a conversation like the chocobo chick that I was hiding in mine and Loqi's room when we were kids." He chuckled awkwardly, then heaved a sigh.

Noctis shrugged. "Alright, so it's a big deal. And you were intentionally hiding it from me. Whatever it is, you must've had a reason for that, right? So... I'll tell you what. You can keep hiding it? And I'll go wait for you at the mini-golf course, and we can still hang out and-"

Once again, Prompto cut him off. This time, though, it was with words. "No." He shook his head again. "No, I shouldn't. I shouldn't hide it from you because if it comes out randomly in conversation with someone else... if you find out about it—I shouldn't even call it an it, honestly—from someone else, then they can make it _seem_ like a worse thing than it actually is. It's not a bad thing, Noct. It's not. It's a good thing, I promise. So... so, if you want? Y-you can give me a ride home. And I'll..." He laughed a nervous note, then turned his eyes to look down at his watch, before glancing back down at Noctis. "I'll either tell you, or you'll find out when we get there."

The cryptics were weird, but Noctis supposed that it made sense. If it was something that Prompto was this nervous about, if Prompto seemed so unsure that he'd outright hidden whatever this was—this thing that 'shouldn't be called an it'—from Noctis? Then there was obviously a good reason for it. So, without hesitation, Noctis lifted the hand with the drink and chips in it for Prompto.

"Here," he said, offering them out to Prompto. "Peace offering?"

Prompto laughed. "I think if anyone should be offering peace, it should be me. But thanks," he mused as he took the chips and the bottle. He glanced at them, then back at Noctis with a little smirk. "You remembered my favorites, huh?" He uncapped the flavored water and took a drink.

Nodding, Noctis shrugged a shoulder. "Never forgot," he mused as he started leading the way toward his car. "Also never understood how you could like that coconut water stuff. I tried it a couple years ago, and I think it tastes like imitation sugar in water with nothing else." He made a face.

"'Course you don't like it," Prompto teased as he walked along behind Noctis. "It's fruit. Reminds me of the time Specs and me tried to convince you to eat the-"

In anticipation of the end of the story, Noctis made a face. "Don't remind me..." he tried to cut Prompto off as they walked.

Prompto's grin was all the wider, though, as he said, " _tomato soup_ ," in a wobbly, haunted voice, like a narrator from a horror movie. "Red, delicious, great with grilled cheese... _tomato soup_ , Noct."

Almost like it was a response to the ghastly voice, Noctis' whole body wrought with a shudder. Tomato soup. Coconut water. How anyone could eat all of this gross fruit and veggie flavored whatever without wanting to get a sick bag right away, Noctis had never known. He heaved a sigh, leading Prompto down the parking lot row that his car was in. Pulling his keys out, he pressed the button to unlock the door and turn the alarm off, and turned to Prompto. "You're a monster, dude. Worse than those people who like pineapple on pizza," he joked.

"Okay, whoa. Cheap shot. I like lots of fruit and veggies, but you _know_ I'd never eat pineapple on pizza." Prompto smirked and nudged Noctis with his shoulder.

Noctis shrugged his head to the side and mused, "hey. A lot can change over seven years. You never know. They may have gotten to you," with a wry grin.

Shaking his head no as the pair of them sank into Noctis' car, Prompto buckled in and then turned his head to glance at Noctis. "Though, certain members of my household don't really hold the same 'anti-pineapple' stance as we do. I try to keep it off the table, but Cin is still in love with it. And..." His voice trailed off there, like there was a little bit more to what he was saying, but he decided to leave it off.

While Noctis was curious, he didn't press the issue. Part of him was feeling a little bit selfishly panicked. What if Prompto was married? What if he'd settled down and found a girl or a guy or someone who could be there for him like he deserved? It made sense, of course. Noctis hadn't been there for him, and even when he _had_ , he'd never made his move. Prompto _deserved_ someone to make him happy. Still, that would be... that would be _painful_ in a way that Noctis hadn't anticipated. Finding his way back to Prompto, the pair of them reconnecting and feeling like he was at home again... and then finding out that Prompto was married.

Still, if it turned out to be the truth, that was what Prompto deserved. Happiness. That thought, though, made him hesitate even _more_ with pressing the issue.

In fact, it stayed unpressed for the whole ride from the grocery store to Prompto's house. While Noctis drove, they talked about pretty much everything that they could think of to talk about. Except for whatever Prompto's secret was, anyway. They talked about their plans for that night—dinner, the mini-golf course, then the ice cream parlor that they always went to as kids—and Prompto thanked Noctis for the chips. They did a car singalong to one of 'their songs' that came on the radio as they turned the corner to Prompto's street... it felt normal. Perfect. Like them.

And then when they stopped, Noctis looked at Prompto, and asked, "do you want me to stay here? 'Cause of that, y'know. It? Whatever it is?"

"N-no. No, I..." Prompto shook his head. "You should know. So that, y'know, if you wanna bail on hanging out and stuff? If it weirds you out? You have the chance." His face was a little bit dismal now, as he wrapped the remaining half of his gysahl chips and held them in his hand.

That wasn't even a concern, and Noctis shook his head as he cut the engine. "Dude, don't even worry about that, okay? Pretty sure nothing could make me not want to hang out with you." He always wanted to when they were younger, and he wanted to even more now.

Prompto chuckled, though it was more of a choked sob in his throat than anything else. "I'm holding you to that," he insisted, as he pushed the passenger's side door to the car open and stepped down onto the pavement.

Whatever Noctis was expecting when he opened the door to the car and walked around to the other side, it wasn't what he got. The front door to the three-story house in front of him swung open and two figures walked outside. One of them was a familiar face; Aranea stood in the doorway, leaning against it and holding her cell phone in her hand like she'd just finished a text. A few feet ahead, though, and bounding across the space between the door and Noctis' car, was a very unfamiliar face.

Well, no. Unfamiliar was an overstatement. Standing all of two-and-a-half feet tall was a little girl with _very_ familiar bright blue eyes, _very_ familiar freckles, and a _very_ familiar smile. In her arm, she tightly clutched a pink chocobo plushie, but her other arm was reaching out in front of her as she bounded down the front walk.

"Daddy, daddy, daddy!" she shrieked.

It had been hitting Noctis since he first laid eyes on her, but right now, it was like his head was a baseball and the fact that this little girl was Prompto's daughter was a baseball bat. Daddy. Prompto was a daddy, and his daughter was the most beautiful thing that Noctis had ever seen in his life. He watched as Prompto crouched down and scooped her up in both of his arms. Immediately, she buried her face in his shoulder and all Noctis could see was a cascade of golden blond waves. She hugged him tightly, before pulling back and looking him over.

With a curious quirk of her head, she asked, "Daddy, why's your pants purple?"

Noctis, though his heart was racing anxiously, stepped out from the other side of the car and approached the pair slowly. "That's my fault," he told her with a little smile.

"Who's you?" she asked.

Glancing over his shoulder at Noctis, Prompto quirked a very nervous smile. "Ven, this is daddy's very good friend, Noctis. Noct, this... uh... this is my daughter. Venia."

As much as Noctis wanted to seem cool and suave, to seem eloquent as possible about this, there was only one thing he could think to say. "She's beautiful, Prom," he told his friend, then glanced at Venia, asking, "anyone ever told you that you look just like your daddy?"

Venia arched an eyebrow and shrugged her head to the side. "But daddy's a boy and I'm a girl," she called out the flaw in Noctis' logic.

"Smart, too," Noctis half-smiled, laughing a soft note. "It's nice to meet you, Venia."

She nodded and smiled. "Mhm! Daddy doesn't really bring much friends over. There's Uncle Iggy and Uncle Gladdy and Uncle Loqi and Uncle Rae Rae, but I don't think they count 'cause they're daddy's brothers. Fam'ly and friends is different. Right?" she asked him.

Family and friends are different. Noctis couldn't help the wave of sadness that washed over him at those words, for more reasons than he was properly explaining to Prompto. It wasn't Venia's fault, of course. She didn't understand, and she probably didn't even know who he was. It wasn't a personal attack, and she seemed like the sweetest little girl to ever exist. If _anyone_ was at fault for the fact that, by those standards, Noctis wasn't Prompto's family anymore? It was Noctis himself. It was because of that, that he didn't say anything. Not right away, at least. Maybe later.

Prompto shrugged. "Sometimes. Sometimes family and friends are the same, though. Remember how you told Auntie Cin that she was your best friend, even though she's your auntie?" he asked her, smoothing some of her hair back from her eyes.

Like it dawned on her in that very second that Prompto was right, she nodded eagerly. "Yeah! So, friends can be family and family can be friends! What about you?" she asked Noctis, pointing at him. "Is you family, too?"

"I think that's up to your daddy, Venia," Noctis answered simply, a nervous smile on his face.

Half-smiling nervously, Prompto shrugged as he turned to look at Noctis. It looked like there was an answer on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't say as much right away. "C'mon, Pipsqueak. Noctis likes art, too. Maybe you can show him some of your pictures while Daddy gets ready to go out tonight, huh?"

"On your date?" Venia asked. Prompto and Noctis both completely froze at those words. Before they could even react, Venia continued talking. "That's what Auntie Cin said it was. That you and your friend was going out on a date. What's a date, daddy?"

Prompto, it seemed, was scrambling. His eyes were wide behind his glasses, and Noctis stepped forward, smiling as wide as he could at Prompto's daughter. "It's like when you go and play with your friends. Your daddy and I are going to go play some grown-up games for a little while. And then I'll bring him back home, okay?" he explained, nodding at her, and then tilting his head to the side.

For a few seconds, Venia seemed to be turning the information over in her head. "Oh! So you and daddy is gonna go play on the playground or go to the zoo or something?"

Now, Prompto laughed and glanced at Noctis, a grateful and honest smile on his face. "Kinda like that, yeah," he replied as he glanced back to Venia.

"Is it okay if I borrow your daddy for the night?" Noctis asked as the three of them started toward Prompto's house.

Venia nodded eagerly. "Daddy doesn't get to play with his friends much 'cause he's always working, so I'll let you borrow him, long as you promise me you'll let him have a whole lot of fun," she told Noctis, a stone-serious expression on her face.

As they reached the door, Noctis smiled and nodded, watching as a warm smile crossed Venia's face, too. "If that's what you want, Venia, I'll do whatever I can to make sure it happens, alright?"

The smile on her face was just like Prompto's smile, and Noctis felt a tight clench around his heart. Now he understood. Now he really understood why Prompto was working two jobs and eighty hours a week. For her. Was he doing it alone? Well, no. Obviously, he wasn't alone, if he lived with Aranea and Cindy and was still close with all of the others. Without a girlfriend, though? Or a boyfriend? Questions for later. Questions for when they were alone and could really talk about things like this without making it weird for Venia, or making it any weirder for Prompto.

For now, Noctis watched as Prompto set Venia down, and as Venia turned toward him with a big smile on her face. "Daddy said you draw?"

"Yup! You too?" Noctis asked her.

She nodded excitedly, then reached up to grab his hand. He didn't get a chance to see Prompto rush up the stairs, and _barely_ had a chance to say a quick hello to Cindy, before Venia tugged at his arm and pulled him into the living room. As she tugged, she chattered as quickly as Prompto always did about her favorite things to draw, and asked Noctis to teach her to draw a chocobo. Honestly, there were worse ways to spend the time he had to wait for Prompto to get back. So, with a slightly confused smile on his face, he followed behind her and prepared to teach her to draw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A WHOLE CHAPTER FULL OF AWKWARD, WITH AN ENDING FULL OF CUTE. Aw yeah.


	4. Permanent Stain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _wash away the tide;_  
>  _never gonna fade, no one can touch the flame or tame the fire._  
>  _you are the piece i can’t replace; you left a mark that won’t erase._  
> [permanent stain](https://open.spotify.com/track/4FErfYHvd6FwUPI6Tu4hSa) ;; backstreet boys

It was okay. It wasn't like Prompto was standing in the shower freaking out about Noctis meeting his daughter or anything. It wasn't like the water had run cold about two minutes ago. It wasn't like every possible situation and way that this could go wrong was running through Prompto's mind as he stood under a shower of ice, either.

Except for the fact that it absolutely _was_ that. Freezing cold water rained down on him, which usually served as his alarm bell that told him that it was time to get out of the shower and get ready for work or bed or whatever time he was actually _taking_ his shower. He was clean. He'd washed his hair, washed his body... now all he had left to do was get the hell out of the shower, get dressed, put his hair up, and go downstairs to see how Noctis and Venia were getting along. What if he didn't like her? What if _she_ didn't like _him_? If either of those things were true, then this whole reunion would have been pointless. Noctis would just walk back out of his life again, and twenty-eight years spent thinking about someone would have been completely useless.

That was a terrifying thought, and one that Prompto—with his usual anxiety—was surprised that he hadn't already considered.

As it danced through his mind, taunting him and refusing to allow him to be too happy about the impending plans he and Noctis had, he hesitated even more to turn the water off. Eventually, though, he did. The lack of a constant source of water had him shivering as he pulled the curtain back and reached for his towel. Wrapping it around his waist quickly, Prompto stepped up in front of the mirror and wiped some of the fading steam away. Glancing at his face, he chuckled softly.

Honestly, he wasn't sure when he'd let his hair get this long, but he was too stubborn to cut it. His boss always told him that it made him look unprofessional, but he didn't really care. He liked it, and it wasn't like it was dirty or gross or anything. He kept it clean, tied it back, and he'd managed to make it to daytime manager with this 'unprofessional, tasteless, hippie garbage look.' Plus, coming from a man who looked like he'd fallen off a burgundy hair dye truck and into an ugly hat shop, Prompto wasn't terribly hurt or offended by the insults. If it really bothered him, he could fire Prompto. He never would, though, because he'd be hard-pressed to find someone who did his job better.

Or probably not, but he had to let himself believe that or else he'd go insane. Having his hair long like this was a tiny bit of defiance, to a man that he hated. Noctis hadn't said anything. Well, no. That wasn't true. Back at the reunion, he'd told Prompto how good he looked. Prompto wasn't sure if it was anything special, but Noctis liked it. Noctis thought it looked good. The tiniest grin crossed his face as he grabbed all of his product and his hair dryer, trying to style it as it had been that night. Ponytail, hanging bangs in the front. It was good enough.

When he was satisfied with it—or, at least as satisfied as he was going to get—he put his work clothes into the hamper and looked for his clean clothes. That was when panic struck him. In his rush to hide, not to see how Venia and Noctis got along, he'd _forgotten_ to get clean clothes from his room. _Son of a..._ he closed his eyes and threw his head back.

Okay. It was okay. It wasn't the end of the world. He stepped up to the door and opened it a crack, then peered down the hall to make sure no one was there. His room was just across the hall. A straight shot from the bathroom. It wasn't a _huge_ deal. He was just desperately worried that somehow, Noctis would see him. _Would it really be **bad** if Noct saw you naked, though?_ he asked himself as he quickly tiptoed across the hall. The worst part of the question was that it didn't have an obvious answer. It would be bad because if Noctis saw him naked, that would probably mean that something had gone wrong downstairs.

If he did, Prompto thought as he opened his door, what was the worst that could happen? If Prompto was smoother, suaver, maybe he'd open his door, back in, and beckon for Noctis to follow him with a playful smile on his face. That was what he'd _want_ to do, anyway. It didn't quite line up with what he _expected_ that he'd do, though.

Fortunately, the whole situation went completely fine, and Prompto made it into his room, closed the door behind him, leaned against it for a couple of seconds, and then sighed a soft note. One week around Noctis, and his crush was already back in full swing. Maybe even more so now, truthfully. Noctis had changed, but in good ways. In amazing ways. He was still the same awesome person; he still always knew exactly what to say to make Prompto feel weak in the knees and get butterflies in his stomach. At the same time, though, he was different in a lot of other ways. Grown-up. Mature.

Well, mature, but _also_ fun enough to know exactly what Prompto wanted to do to wind down.

The mini golf course. Okay, so that meant that he didn't want to dress too formally. Prompto knew that a button down and jeans probably passed as casual for Noctis, so he needed to dress casually for himself, too. Tugging his closet open, he first gathered a pair of boxer briefs and tugged them on. Then came the jeans that he usually wore when he went places with friends. The ones that got him compliments from strangers, dates with strangers who immediately ran when they found out that Prompto was a father. He tossed them over to his bed, alongside his favorite t-shirt, a black one that he'd gotten on a whim a few years ago when he was thinking about Noctis. It was a Fall Out Boy shirt, and when he'd seen it in the store, he'd thought back to all the times that they'd sworn to go to a Fall Out Boy show together. Things that had never worked out.

Maybe they had a chance to now, though. The thought made him smile a little bit more in spite of his nerves. He turned toward his bed, putting his jeans on, then his t-shirt, and then spraying some cologne on, tying his hair, and gathering his socks and boots. As he sat on the bed, he heard a gentle rapping against his door. He jumped, worried once again that it was Noctis, but when the voice that called out didn't belong to his friend, he couldn't help but feel a little bit relieved.

"You in there, Skinny?" Aranea called.

Prompto nodded, then cleared his throat. "Yeah," he answered as he leaned down to tug his chocobo print socks on. A little bit childish, but Venia had chosen them for him, and there was no way that he could tell her no. Plus, he still loved chocobos now just as much as he always had as a kid.

The door creaked open, and Aranea stepped inside, leaning back against it when it closed. "So, on a scale of one to ten, how nervous are you?"

Laughing, Prompto tilted his head up to look at her as he loosened his black combat boots to tug them on. "I would say a million, but that still doesn't seem like a high enough number. I mean, I shouldn't be. You know? It's Noct. Noct is _Noct_. He's... I used to feel so safe and comfortable around him, and everything. I think, in a lot of ways, I kinda still do..." he admitted.

Aranea nodded. "But that doesn't change that it's been so long, right?" she asked.

Prompto just nodded.

"If it helps?" Aranea mused as she nodded down at the ground floor. "I think he's nervous, too. He's teaching Ven to draw chocobos right now, but he keeps looking at the stairs with this nervous look on his face, almost like he expects you to come down the stairs and tell him you can't go, or that you don't want to go. He's real nervous."

In all the years that Prompto and Noctis were best friends, Prompto never remembered seeing Noctis nervous. He _knew_ that he'd never been the _cause_ of that nervousness. Still, it was a little bit of a relief to know that he wasn't the only one feeling it. He shrugged his head to the side, then chuckled a soft, awkward note, and looked up at Aranea. "I think it makes me kinda lousy, feeling relieved at that," he admitted.

She shrugged. "Nah," she disagreed. "Long as one of you gets over it? I think you'll have a really good night. You've missed him."

With a laugh, Prompto shrugged his head to the side and tied his right boot. "That obvious, huh?" he asked.

Aranea nodded. "I mean, if Specs and the Big Guy hadn't told him where you worked? I was gonna, because I was tired of mopey Skinny, walking around the house and sighing all the time as he looked at his phone." She smirked wryly as she walked over to the bed and plopped down beside him. "Now you two are goin' on a date, though."

Red flooded Prompto's cheeks as he glanced over at her. "I don't know who told you two it was a date, 'Nea, or why Cin thought it was okay to tell Venia, but-"

"No one told us," Aranea mused with a wry grin. "Well, no. That's bullshit, actually. Your actions were what told us. Don't see you getting nervous when you go to hang out with us, or with Ravus and Loqi-"

Prompto scoffed. "You guys are family, though!" he pointed out.

Shrugging, Aranea added, "or Specs or the Big Guy, or Luna and Nyx, or anyone else, really. I guess you could say that we're all family, but does that mean that Noctis isn't?" She pushed some silver hair from her face and then threw her arm around Prompto's shoulders once he finished tying his other boot.

Was Noctis family? Sure, a long time ago it wouldn't have even been a question, but did family just stop talking for seven years like that? Prompto swallowed thickly. "I don't know what it means," he admitted.

"Yeah, you do. Don't be dumb, Skinny. You missed him, he missed you. You've been family, even when you were apart, and you know it," she insisted, tugging him a little bit closer and shaking him gently. "What do you always tell me and Cin every time a date doesn't work out? That it's okay, because they're nothing like..."

Prompto bit down on his lower lip. "Who I want," he answered. It was pointless to lie to Aranea, anyway. She always caught him.

She nodded. "And who is what you want?" The question probably wasn't even necessary, and Aranea almost definitely knew that, if the way she released Prompto from her grip and stood up was any indication.

The answer was there. On the tip of his tongue and screaming in his brain, he _knew_ that Noctis was the answer to that question. No matter what dates he'd been on, no matter what had happened in the past, Noctis was the one person that his mind always went back to. The slide rule for all of his failed dates and relationships over the past seven years. So, yeah. He knew that Noctis was who he wanted. Still, knowing _that_ much wasn't all that mattered. Noctis' wants mattered, definitely, but so did Venia's. What if he let himself get attached all over again, and had to put a stop to it because Noctis and Venia didn't get along?

"My opinion's not the only one that matters, Nea..." Prompto pointed out.

Aranea chuckled a soft note. "Did you miss the part when I told you that Noctis is teaching her to draw? Seriously, Skinny. You're gonna die when you get down there," she insisted, punching him lightly in the shoulder. "Oh. Bring your camera tonight, okay? And take tons of pictures, 'cause I want to see all the details. Unless you guys fuck-"

With wide eyes, Prompto shook his head in a vehement no. "We're not... we won't fuck!" he whisper-shouted.

Dismissing his claim with a shrug, Aranea walked toward the door and stepped outside. "When you guys leave, come and get me and Cin in the backyard, okay? We're grilling burgers for dinner, and Venia wanted to put the cheese on," she smirked.

Prompto nodded and stood up as Aranea's grin disappeared behind the closing door. He walked over to his mirror, looking at his reflection and sighed a little bit. Passable. He looked okay. Tired, but he always looked tired. Maybe tomorrow, he could catch up on a little bit of extra sleep when Cindy got home from the garage. For a second, he considered putting in contacts, but then he remembered Noctis telling him that he'd always _liked_ Prompto with his glasses. A tiny grin crossed his face as he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. Noctis liked them. Prompto didn't mind, maybe, knocking him on his ass a _little_ bit.

With that settled, he gathered a hoodie from his closet and hung it on his arm, grabbed his camera from his bureau, and then took one more glance at himself in the mirror. Okay. Okay, he could do this. It was just... spending time with Noctis. It was _Noctis_. No matter how long they'd been apart, Prompto still trusted him. There was no way that he could've changed _that_ much.

So, with that last affirmation, Prompto slid his wallet into his pants pocket and opened his bedroom door. Down the stairs and into the laundry room he went, and then out into the dining room, where he had a clear view into the living room.

Aranea's warning rang through his mind as he turned to glance at Noctis and Venia, and when they came into his vision, he realized how accurate it was. Noctis held a pencil in his hand, with Venia sitting on his knee and watching his hand movements intently. She smiled and watched what was undoubtedly a chocobo appearing on the page, and Prompto felt his breath hitch. Like something had his heart in a vice grip and was squeezing _just_ slightly, enough to make him feel like his knees were weak. He swallowed thickly and watched them quietly for a couple more seconds, leaning sideways against the trim on the edge of the wall.

"And that's how you draw chocobo feet," Noctis told her, smiling a warm and gentle smile that Prompto recognized immediately.

Venia turned her head, beaming from her smile to her eyes to her body language, and she nodded eagerly, holding her hand out for the pencil. "Can I try?" she asked. "I wanna draw the chocobo ranch for daddy, 'cause he takes me there every year for my birthday and-"

Noctis nodded his head. "Sure," he answered, handing her the pencil and watching as she scooted down from his knee to sit on the floor.

Neither of them had even noticed Prompto standing a few feet away. He was wrapped up in teaching, and Venia, like she always was, was completely and totally absorbed with learning whatever people were willing to teach her. She had her tongue hanging out of the right corner of her mouth as she tried to mimic Noctis' hand's movements on the page. Her eyes squinted, and Prompto felt his heart flutter in his chest as Noctis reached a hand toward her and pushed some of her hair from her face. That... wasn't fair. At all, actually. It was like this image in front of him was showing him a definite answer to the question that Aranea had just asked.

Who did he want? Well, if she asked the question again, right this moment, Prompto's answer would be Noctis. Answered just as quickly as it would have been when he was a teenager. This image, of his daughter and the man he'd been in love with for years, bonding, smiling, drawing together... was everything.

So much so that he almost didn't dare interrupt it. Quickly, he made sure that his camera's flash wasn't on, and he raised it to snap a quick picture of the pair of them, before he was noticed. As though the camera's shutter caught Venia's attention, though, his daughter sprang up from the floor in an instant, the smile on her face growing all the wider as she bounded across the living room floor and hugged Prompto around the middle.

"Hi, Daddy!" she greeted.

Prompto's smile was soft as he reached down to ruffle her hair a little bit. "Hey, Squirt. You teaching Noctis how to draw?" he teased.

Venia, however, took the tease seriously and shook her head in an adamant no. "Nope! Him was teaching me to draw chocobos! C'mere! You gotta see!" She didn't wait for Prompto to answer, instead reached her hand up and took Prompto's in her tiny fingers, leading him eagerly over to the coffee table.

When he met Noctis' gaze, his friend's expression was impressed. Prompto wasn't sure exactly what he'd done that was so _impressive_ , but if it had caught Noctis' attention? Well, he'd have to find out so that he could do it again. He followed Venia's lead when she pointed at the couch for Prompto to sit beside Noctis, and then turned to look at Noctis and ask, "this seat taken?"

Noctis grinned. "Looks like it is now," he answered. "I don't make the rules." As he said that, he pointed at Venia, who was looking up at Prompto expectantly.

Laughing, Prompto shrugged his shoulders. "Neither do I, Noct," he answered, sitting down next to Noctis. Not as close as he wanted to, but not as far as he probably should have, either.

As though the spot between them was designated perfectly for her, she squeezed in between them on the couch and then stretched to the table to pick up her tiny notepad. "See? I drew this one, and Noctis did that one. He's real good, Daddy! He told me that he can teach me to draw other stuff, too! Like kitties and puppies and even a _carbuncle_!" she smiled up at Prompto eagerly.

"Good work, Squirt!" Prompto grinned back at her, leaning down to press a soft kiss to her forehead. "I didn't know you like carbuncles," he told her.

She shook her head. "I didn't even know what they was, Daddy! Noctis showed me that he has one, and then told me that he'd teach me to draw them!" She turned to look at Noctis, hugging him around the middle and leaning her head into his side. "I like him! Can he come back and play sometime after you two go on your date?"

Chuckling nervously, Noctis placed a hand on Venia's shoulder. "I'd like that, if it's okay with your dad, anyway," he answered.

"Whenever he wants, Pipsqueak," Prompto answered, looking at Noctis over Venia's head.

In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of Venia burying her head in Noctis' side again. When she did, Noctis looked up and met Prompto's gaze, a warm and honest smile on his face. Instantly, Prompto wondered exactly what he'd been worried about. Sure, some people weren't comfortable with being around Prompto and Venia. In his life, though, in all the years that he'd known Noctis, when had his friend _ever_ been like everyone else? Prompto made a mental note to thank Noctis for being so awesome with her, for teaching her to draw, and for... just being Noctis.

This did absolutely nothing to help with the feelings that were quickly redeveloping—almost like they'd never gone away—either. This was the only 'test;' the only uncertainty that Prompto had when it came to himself and Noctis, and whether his feelings made any sense, and Noctis had passed it with flying colors.

It took way too long to convince Venia to detach herself from Noctis, and when she did, she immediately attached herself to Prompto instead. She hugged him around the neck as the three of them walked into the backyard, to drop Venia off with Aranea and Cindy. That, too, was kind of a big thing. She had to show Noctis everything in the backyard. Every detail and every toy she had—including the giant chocobo-shaped jungle gym that Prompto had bought her for her fifth birthday, with all of her dolls and action figures and toy cars and whatever other toys she had in the middle—and the tree house that Cindy and Gladio were helping her build.

Prompto watched, that same vice grip constricting his heart, as Noctis lifted her up onto his shoulders and listened to everything she said. He didn't rush her. The sun was nearing the horizon, and for all Prompto knew, Noctis had gotten them reservations somewhere, but he let Venia talk. Noctis let her tell all of her stories until her voice got tired.

Truthfully, Prompto wasn't sure what he'd expected. Noctis wasn't the type of person to rush a little girl when she was excited like this. Not only that, but he genuinely seemed to be enjoying listening to her talk. When she finally finished the tour, Venia gave Noctis a hug, gave Prompto a kiss, and then rushed over to join Cindy and Aranea with a declaration of, "have fun on your date!"

As much as Prompto tried, he couldn't keep the red from his cheeks. Between the way that Venia was instantly drawn to Noctis, and the way that everyone insisted that this was a date and not just a pair of friends trying to reconnect. Though, equally surprising was the fact that neither of them had ever really tried to stop them, beyond the vague, half-attempt that Prompto made when he was talking with Aranea in his room. He hadn't heard Noctis correct them at all. They walked through the house, Noctis a couple of steps behind Prompto, and Prompto turned to take a glance at Noctis' expression, in an attempt to see if he could gauge how his friend was feeling.

Fortunately, Noctis didn't keep him guessing.

"She's beautiful, Prom. She looks just like you."

A tiny bit of heat rose to Prompto's cheeks, as he glanced beyond Noctis, catching a final glimpse at where Venia was trying to separate two pieces of cheese in the packet. Then, he shrugged his head to the side and smiled. "She's... she's everything, you know? My little girl. Though, I've gotta say, I've never seen her take to someone like she took to you. That's not to say she's antisocial..." He paused.

Noctis smirked. "Can't imagine any daughter of yours would be," he teased.

Laughing in acknowledgment, Prompto nodded as he pushed the front door of the house open. "I'd be offended if you weren't totally right," he mused with a little grin. "She's a talker. You probably figured that out when you were teaching her to draw, though."

To that, Noctis just shrugged and nodded. "It's okay, though. I like it. Takes a little of the pressure off of me, y'know? When it comes to filling silences," he mused, following Prompto out the door.

"From the very second she said her first word," Prompto mused, glancing fondly down at the pavement as he spoke of Venia, "she hasn't stopped talking. And she learns really fast, too. We're sorta taking our grammar corrections one at a time. We just taught her the difference between he and she. A month ago, and you'd've probably been a she."

Noctis laughed aloud as he unlocked his car again. "Wonder if I'd have been a pretty girl," he joked, tilting his head to the side in mock thought.

That coaxed a smirk from Prompto as he walked around Noctis' car and tugged the door open. "I don't doubt it, honestly. We'd have to shave that fuzz from your chin, unless you _wanted_ to go for the bearded lady look," he teased, then quickly ducked into the car to avoid the reprisal.

It didn't last long, though, because seconds later, he heard Noctis' laughter as he settled into the driver's seat. "Look who's talking, Mr. Goatee. Though, I guess it's only natural. I remember after we graduated, all the crap that Gladio gave both of us about the fact that we'd never be able to grow 'actual facial hair.' Though it seems like only one of us succeeded."

With a faux-affronted scoff, Prompto narrowed his eyes and shoved at Noctis' shoulder. "I'll have you know," he declared in the face of Noctis' smile, "that this is a finely crafted shave job. _Definitely_ not because I'm incapable of growing convincing facial hair..." Even as he stated that, though, he brought his hand back to him, and crossed his arms over his chest with a dramatic pout. Definitely telling of the fact that he was lying through his teeth.

Noctis' soft laugh as he turned the key and started the car made Prompto's chest flutter again. It was safe to say that his feelings were just as strong today as they'd been seven years ago. "I'm glad things worked out this way, Prom. That I'm here, and that, y'know, I met Venia and got to teach her to draw," he admitted.

"I'm, uh..." Prompto paused, glancing down at his hands once he buckled his seat belt, "sorry I didn't tell you about her sooner. I just... I guess, I kept thinking about how the Prompto you remembered wasn't this. You know? Didn't have to work two jobs or make every decision based on what a kid would need."

The gentle smile that Noctis showed him made the vice grip squeeze a little bit tighter on his heart. "I mean, no. The Prompto I _remembered_ didn't have to do that, but... that doesn't mean that he doesn't have to now. And that doesn't mean that, just because he has to do that stuff, he's not worth the same time and respect as he was back then. I'd say he's worth even more now, for dropping everything he dreamed of like that." Though Noctis' eyes were on the road, Prompto could clearly see a dusting of red on his cheeks.

Suddenly, Prompto wondered why he'd ever been nervous, to begin with. "I think, deep down, I knew that. I think... I think it was less about you thinking I was a failure or something, and more about me." He paused, then shook his head hard, leaning his elbow against the door. "That sounds way worse than I meant it. What... what I mean? Is like... I love Venia with all my heart, and I don't regret anything about my life as long as she's in it. She's the most important person in my life, you know?" he explained.

"As she should be," Noctis agreed.

Prompto nodded. "It's just... not where I thought I'd be at twenty-seven. You know? I thought I'd have at least caught up to you," he confessed.

Noctis shook his head, and Prompto saw his hands grip a little bit tighter to the steering wheel as he refocused on the road. Not like he was angry, but more like a sign of awkwardness, of discomfort. Of nervousness. "We're not racing, Prom," he insisted. "I think you're in a good place. You've got Venia. You have Aranea and Cindy, too. And you've got everyone else. That seems like a pretty good place to me."

Right. Noctis had mentioned feeling lonely. Prompto turned that over in his head as he took in his friend's expression. Sad, but not sad at the same time. He was staring at the road, almost like he was trying not to focus on his own emotions at the moment. "It is a pretty good place. It's not like I'm trying to complain or anything. I'm happy. I like my life. I'm just... gods, I must sound like such a bad dad right now, complaining about my-"

Before he could go any further, Noctis cut him off with a hum of a negative answer. "I think you're a great dad, Prom," he insisted. "I know I haven't seen a ton of you doing _actual_ dad stuff, but it's obvious that Venia loves you, and it's obvious that you'll do pretty much anything for her. Like the way Cor was with you and Loqi growing up, or the way my dad was with me. Right?" Again, his expression fell a little bit further.

Nodding, Prompto smiled a soft smile. "Thanks," he answered. "She's a really good kid, y'know? I want her to have the dad that me and Lo never had until Cor came along. The dad that your dad tried to be to all of us."

Prompto was _about_ to ask how Noctis' dad was doing, but before the question could even bubble forth, Noctis reached down to the radio and turned it on. He didn't really even acknowledge what Prompto had said about Cor, or about Noctis' dad, instead, waved his hand toward the radio and told Prompto to "find a station. Whatever you want to listen to, okay? I've also got my phone, that we can hook up so we can listen to whatever you want on there, if there's nothing on the satellite radio that sounds good." He grinned, flicking the blinker on and taking a right turn toward the small restaurant district in downtown Insomnia.

As Prompto listened, and started flipping through stations on the radio, he felt his mind going back to the way they'd always used to do this after Noctis got his license. Noctis would drive, Prompto would fiddle with the radio, and they'd just go, without a destination. It didn't matter where, as long as the two of them were together.

"So, where are we going, anyway?" Prompto asked.

Noctis ticked a shoulder up in a shrug and his expression evened back out a little bit, from the tense and tentative, tight-lipped smile to a slightly more honest grin. "I was a little bit torn," he admitted. "Between that Accordan place, or the sushi place that I worked at in high school. Then I remembered that the food at the sushi place made Iris sick the last time she went, and I didn't want to take the risk. So... Accordan?" he asked.

Accordan food. Romantic. Prompto kept that comment to himself, though, and turned to nod his head at Noctis as he finally settled on a station. Just a regular alternative station, but Noctis knew that Prompto liked it, and as far as Prompto could tell, Noctis wasn't going to complain. "It's been awhile since I've had Accordan. I don't really go out a lot anymore," he admitted.

"Because you're always working," Noctis asked, though it was more of a comment than a question.

Prompto nodded. "Long days, but honestly, it's not so bad. I never really have to tell Venia 'no,' or give her less for Christmas or birthdays than her friends would get. She always has school clothes and can afford lunches, so it's not like... you know..."

In a slightly somber tone, Noctis answered, "like it was for you before Cor?" His tone was gentle, because he knew how sore a subject it was for Prompto.

Because of that, all Prompto answered with was a nod. "As long as she's happy, I'm happy," he insisted.

"Toldja you were a good dad," Noctis mused, flicking his eyes over to meet with Prompto's for a couple of seconds as they sat at a stoplight.

Prompto smirked. "I do my best," he answered.

A part of Prompto wondered if Noctis was curious about Venia's mother. If he had questions, or if it didn't matter to him. Prompto wanted to burst at the seams and tell him everything, but before the words went from his brain to his mouth, he turned to see that they were in the restaurant district. A smile crossed his face. He really hadn't been kidding when he'd said that he get out this way that often. The last time he'd actually been out here was the last time he'd gone on a date, several months ago. A couple of restaurants had closed down since then, and a couple of new ones had opened up. A Galahdan place was flanked by a Nifilian place and a burger joint, and Prompto found himself hungry all of a sudden.

When he blinked back into awareness of the situation, though, he turned to glance at Noctis, only to see that Noctis was staring at him while they sat at a stop light. "I feel like a country mouse," Prompto mused sheepishly.

"I mean, I haven't been back here in five years, so..." Noctis shrugged, "it looks like a whole different place to me."

Prompto grinned. "Well, we can rediscover it together. How does that sound?" he asked.

The smile on Noctis' face as he turned back to the steering wheel and the car started moving again could have moved mountains. Hell, his whole _face_ could have moved mountains, truthfully. "Sounds like exactly what both of us need, I think," he answered confidently.

Even if Prompto _wanted_ to tell him that he was wrong, there was no way that he could. Not when he was absolutely right. Prompto smiled even wider as he settled back into his seat and waited for them to arrive at the Accordan restaurant. Rediscovering the city together. That sounded like a dream come true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some classic 'Prompto being Prompto, and Noctis being Noctis' going on here! ♥


	5. Blue Heaven Midnight Crush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _you're like a fire on a summer night,_  
>  _or getting caught in the rain, or going 80 on the highway..._  
>  _and i think you feel the same._  
> [blue heaven midnight crush](https://open.spotify.com/track/6ZyC5YTgbH9PVMydskD3Uz) ;; betty who

The whole of dinner, they'd just talked. Noctis had asked about everyone. Loqi, Ravus, Cor, even Gladio and Ignis, because according to what Noctis said, there were still things that they wouldn't tell him. That sometimes, they were dismissive when Noctis asked how they were. With all of Noctis' questions, most of dinner consisted of Prompto talking, with Noctis just occasionally putting his two cents in.

As they talked, the fact that Noctis was lonely, that he'd _been_ lonely for quite awhile now, was all the more obvious. Every time they talked about an event that he'd missed, his expression would fall further and further. Like Gladio and Ignis' wedding. According to Noctis, he had tried _desperately_ to get away from the gallery opening he'd been at in Niflheim, but the wedding was in the winter, when the Nifilian snow was at its highest. Prompto remembered Gladio and Ignis talking about how Noctis had been stuck in Niflheim for an extra week afterward, but that he'd sent gifts. Prepayment for whatever furniture they wanted for their living room, a check for 100,000 gil for them to use toward their new house, plus the keys to his Altissia apartment for them to use for their honeymoon.

Prompto remembered being completely gobsmacked by the sheer volume of what Noctis had given them, but at the same time, realizing that it was very much a Noctis thing to do. If he couldn't be there, he wanted to be sure that they knew that he still cared. Still, it probably didn't help him keep from feeling isolated. As they walked to the gate of the old mini-golf course, Prompto vowed to take any loneliness that his friend was feeling and try to make it disappear.

"It looks like it's closed," Noctis murmured as he stepped up to the chain link fence that stood between them and the course.

Noctis was right, of course. Not just right, but _very_ right. The weeds were overgrown, and there were large bits of grass poking through the cracks in the parking lot pavement, which led Prompto to believe that it had been closed for a very long time. A couple of years, at least. Prompto was unable to stop himself from lifting his camera to snap a couple of pictures. With that done, though, he peered through the chain link, and hummed a soft note. The only lights that lit the place up were the streetlights nearby. That said, it still looked like all of the old bits and pieces were in there. From where they stood, Prompto could see the top of the windmill. Some of the pieces of the propeller seemed to have broken off, but it was still standing.

So, with a shrug, Prompto stepped up to the fence's gate and looked it over. There was a gap in the gate that, if moved just right... Prompto reached down, taking hold of the gate and tugging it back a little bit. That gave enough leeway for him to squeeze through, easily, so he ducked underneath the chain, squeezing his body through, and smirking at Noctis from the other side.

"Don't see a sign, do you?" Prompto asked, shrugging his head to the side and beckoning for his friend to follow him.

Never one to be outdone, Noctis nodded once and grinned a wild—and damn sexy, if Prompto was being honest with himself—grin, but then ignored to gate in favor of quickly and effortlessly scaling the fence itself. He hurdled himself over the top, and then came to a landing next to Prompto, a smile dancing in his eyes. Prompto couldn't help but reciprocate as he lifted his camera and threw an arm over Noctis' shoulders. "Probably-trespassing selfie?" he asked.

A laugh breezed through Noctis' lips, and he nodded, placing his hand on Prompto's opposite shoulder and smirking for the camera. "Why not leave a paper trail?" he joked.

Eagerly snapping a photo, Prompto turned his body toward Noctis', throwing his other arm—the one holding the camera—around his friend's shoulders and hugging him loosely. "It's good to see you letting loose," he admitted. "Was a little worried that you'd forgotten how."

"Look who's talking, Mr. Eighty Hour Weeks," Noctis countered, reaching his arms up to hug Prompto in return. "I think we both needed this pretty bad, don't you?" His voice was soft and rumbled gently in Prompto's ear, and made his stomach do flips in his abdomen, but honestly, he kind of liked it that way.

It wasn't like Noctis was even wrong, either. Prompto, as much as he knew that he had a good reason for working like he did, needed some time for just him. Or maybe, time for him and Noctis together. That was the best part about this. Finally, Prompto dropped his arms back to his side, letting his camera hang back down at his chest, and nodded his agreement. Honestly, he'd probably have insisted that Noctis needed it more, but Prompto couldn't remember the last time he'd let loose like this. Not that he was tightly wound, but to a degree, he always had to be.

Noctis looked around the rundown mini-golf course, and it seemed like something caught his attention, because his face went from that soft and gentle smile to as lit up as a Christmas tree in a split second. His eyes opened wider, and he beckoned for Prompto to follow him, reaching for Prompto's hand much like he had at senior prom and at the reunion. Prompto followed willingly, as always, and blinked up at the rental building when Noctis stopped in front of it. It was closed and locked, but there was a completely broken window a few feet away from the door.

Much to Prompto's surprise, Noctis took the initiative here, dropping Prompto's hand and stepping up to the window, climbing up and into the building. A couple of seconds passed, during which Prompto peered in through the window. When he heard the scraping of the locks on the front door, though, he positioned himself in front of the door and lifted his camera. The door opened to a smiling Noctis, who Prompto immediately ambushed with a camera snap.

When Noctis simply smiled in reply, Prompto couldn't help but smile back. "Couldn't resist, could you?" Noctis asked.

"You know me better than to think that I have any impulse control," Prompto pointed out in return, snapping another picture of a bit of graffiti next to the door, and then letting his camera fall back down to his chest.

With that out of the way, he stepped into the rental building behind Noctis and immediately started looking around. It was obviously unused; it obviously hadn't _been_ used in a little while. It wasn't in complete disrepair or anything. The walls and ceiling were still intact, and aside from that one window that was completely gone, none were broken or cracked. It looked like a couple of people had been in here before. Teenagers and young adults, maybe, if the soda and beer cans, chip bags, and other pieces of kid trash were any indication.

Noctis chuckled. "Here I was thinking that we were breaking some kind of super cool ground," he mused as he kicked at a beer can on the ground.

Smirking, Prompto shrugged. "Still seems pretty cool to me, honestly. What's that phrase old people say? If all the kids are doing it?" he joked as he stepped a little further into the building and ducked around a pretty big net of cobwebs. He cringed visibly and stepped a little bit closer to Noctis. A little closer, however, ended up turning into 'bumping straight into Noctis' back and making him stumble,' which made Prompto's cheeks heat up. "Uh... sorry. Cobwebs."

"Did you forget who you're talking to?" Noctis asked, glancing back at the webs and making a face.

Prompto chuckled. That was right. Noctis hated bugs, too. "Guess so. As long as there's no bugs on them, I guess we're okay, huh?" he asked. "What're we even here for?"

Noctis shrugged, stepping over a small pile of garbage and peering underneath a counter. Suddenly, he perked up and reached under the counter, coming back with a pair of mini golf clubs and a smile. "These! I sort of hoped that maybe there were a couple in here still, and..." He offered one out to Prompto. "Here they are. I think I saw a bucket of balls by the door. Do you wanna play? We can call all the weeds and overgrown stuff... I dunno, obstacles?" He grinned.

That grin wasn't getting any easier to handle. Still, Prompto managed to quirk his lips up in return and nod his head in agreement. "Obstacles, or we can walk through and whack them with our clubs." He lifted his club over his shoulder as he moved toward the door, to check for the bucket Noctis had mentioned.

Sure enough, it sat there, ready for the taking. At first, Prompto was only going to take a couple of them, but thinking back to the times they'd been here as teenagers, they'd always been really lousy shots. So, he grabbed the handle to the bucket and picked it up, turning to Noctis with a little grin. "What do you say we make a game of it?"

"I mean, it is a game..." Noctis grinned wryly as he approached Prompto again and gave him a gentle hip-to-hip bump.

Prompto scoffed and rolled his eyes, nudging Noctis back with his shoulder. "Thanks, Captain Obvious," he teased. "I meant, make it more interesting. Each hole, whoever wins gets to ask the loser whatever question they want." While Prompto was aware that, whenever they'd played as kids, Noctis had always wiped the floor with him? It didn't matter. A playful bet like this was okay.

It seemed like Noctis agreed, too, because he placed his hand on the small of Prompto's back and led him toward the course's first hole. "About whatever we want," he repeated, his tone a little bit more nervous than Prompto would have expected.

That made him backpedal a little bit. There were obviously some things that Noctis wasn't ready to say yet, and that was fine. Prompto wasn't going to force him to talk about anything he didn't want to. Especially since, unless things had changed drastically, that was a quick and easy way to make Noctis retreat. Prompto raked his teeth over his lip, shook his head, and turned to flash Noctis an understanding smile.

"I mean, I'm not gonna make you. You know that. I'm pretty sure I couldn't if I wanted to."

Noctis shrugged and chuckled a soft note. "You could," he admitted. "You could probably make me do anything you wanted me to. I'd probably answer anything you wanted me to, too." That confession came with a sad, but candid and soft, smile.

Honestly, Prompto wasn't sure what got him more there. Was it the tone of Noctis' voice, or his words? The way he pressed his hand just a little bit tighter into Prompto's back, maybe? He wasn't even guiding Prompto, he was just touching him. Just standing close to him, touching him with a warm hand against the small of his back. Whatever it _was_ that got to him more, though, it was in overdrive right now, and Prompto looked at Noctis with a coy little smile on his face. While he had no plans to admit it aloud just yet, Prompto could easily say the same for Noctis as he just had for Prompto.

Instead of saying so, though, Prompto just smiled. "I won't ask too much," he answered instead.

The silence that filled the air was simultaneously comfortable and filled with a tense anxiety that Prompto could feel down to the pit of his stomach. Prompto stopped when they reached the first hole, glancing up at it and chuckling. It was an obnoxious curve with three tubes on it, two of which were overgrown with weeds covering the outside. Prompto set the bucket down, leaned his golf club against a nearby bench, and then rushed over to clear the weeds from either side of the tubes. After each side was cleared, he leaned down to make sure that there was nothing stuck inside.

"Place has been closed down for awhile, huh?" Noctis asked as he straightened up from examining the other tube. He gathered up both clubs, and held Prompto's out to him.

Prompto nodded. "Looks that way. I don't really get out here much anymore, though, so I can't say how long. Doesn't matter, though. We'll just have to improvise," he grinned, accepting the club and picking up a pair of golf balls from the bucket. One he handed to Noctis, and the second he took himself.

Quirking a grin, Noctis mused, "beauty before age."

Beauty before age. Okay, that was smooth as hell, and Prompto could feel his cheeks heating up. In spite of the embarrassment, he managed a smile at Noctis as he mumbled, "you're, like... two months older than me, Noct." Even so, he stepped toward the tee. "And if it really was beauty before age, I'd be screwed, 'cause I would have pretty much no chance to go first."

The words came out before Prompto even had a chance to stop them, and even so, he couldn't legitimately say that he didn't mean them. Noctis was, far and away, the most beautiful person he'd seen in his life. Now and when they were younger. Maybe that was why the words came so naturally to him. Either way, they were out there now. Prompto had said them, and he still wasn't taking them back. Not that he probably would have anyway. A split-second glance showed Noctis grinning in response to them, but he didn't say anything beyond that quick little smile.

Before he could embarrass himself anymore, Prompto squinted into the half-light, trying to line up a good shot. It really had been a long time since he'd been mini-golfing, so he wasn't sure exactly how well this would go. It didn't matter, though. He took his shot, aiming for the left tube, and the ball went in. The rolling sound was a little bit louder than Prompto expected it to be, but that was okay. When it came out the other side, it rolled a little bit faster than Prompto expected it to, stopping just short of the hole. A couple of inches. Okay. Maybe he wouldn't be as rusty as he thought.

Noctis smirked. "You sure you haven't been here in awhile?" he asked with a gentle grin as he stepped forward, gathering his own golf ball and glancing at the three tubes.

"Not since the last time we came here, I don't think. That was at _least_ ten years ago," Prompto murmured in reply as he crossed the short distance between himself and his golf ball. He marked the spot with a gil coin from his pocket, and then stepped back to let Noctis take his shot.

What he _didn't_ expect to hear was a soft and echoing _TINK_ sound, of the golf ball hitting the wood outside of the three tubes and bouncing back toward Noctis. His eyes were wide as he regarded his friend, who was staring back at the little white golf ball as it rolled back to land right in front of his feet. Okay. That was funny, and Prompto was having a really, really tough time not laughing at it. He covered his mouth, watching Noctis' reaction before he made any indication that he was amused by the situation. Well, more than he'd already given, anyway.

As soon as Noctis burst out laughing, Prompto followed suit, doubling over with laughter and almost falling onto his face on the ground. "I guess I'm not the rusty one here."

Noctis looked around, and Prompto recognized it right away as his friend looking for an excuse for his lousy shot, the same way he always used to when they were younger. "Man, I can't even blame it on the sun being in my eyes!" he huffed. "Guess I just suck." Placing his gold club on the ground, Noctis used it as something of a cane, then glanced at Prompto. "Go ahead. Get your eagle. Or birdie. Or whatever it's called." He waved his hand at Prompto in faux dismissal.

"Hole in two?" Prompto replied slyly.

They obviously didn't know golf terms. They'd never learned them. Mostly because they never mattered. What had always mattered when they did things like this was that they had fun. So far, that was definitely true. At the very least, on Prompto's part. It looked like it was true for Noctis, too. Prompto watched as Noctis nodded, then chuckled again as he stepped toward the coin on the fake grass.

As he set his golf ball down, Prompto mused, "you'll get back to playing shape eventually." His tone made him smirk. Playing shape. Like they were a pair of sports stars or something.

Noctis caught that, too, because he grinned. "And then I'll get to play in the big game, Coach?"

First, Prompto stuck his tongue out at Noctis in reply to his tease. Then, he went into mini-golf mode. He glanced at the hole, lined up, and then hit the ball very gently, listening to the echoing click of it falling into place in the hole. "Guess all those rounds of TMNT Mini-Golf with Venia have kept me from getting too rusty. And people used to try and tell us that video games were a waste of time," he joked as he picked his ball up out of the hole.

With a chuckle, Noctis tried again from the spot his ball had landed, a whole foot away from the tee. This time, at the very least, it went into the right tube. However, in a really odd twist of fate, the sound of the ball moving through the tube completely stopped halfway through. Prompto's eyes went wide, and he turned his head to glance at Noctis in surprise, before leaning down and sticking the handle of his golf club into the tube. Sliding it through, he barely held back a raucous round of laughter when he came into contact with a large pile of brush that Noctis must have missed when he was looking into the tube.

Out came Noctis' ball along with it, and it rolled back to land a couple of feet outside of the pipe.

"Wow..." Noctis mused, amazed as he took a couple of steps forward, glancing down at his ball.

Prompto grabbed at the brush with the handle of his golf club, pushing some of it out through the tube and then pulling a couple more pieces out toward him. "Wanna call that one a do-over? Hazard or something? Whatever the golf term is?"

Shaking his head no, Noctis glanced down at the tube and then at the ball. "No. Now it's a matter of pride. I can't let this stupid tube beat me. I already lost, though, so you get to ask me a question." The tone of his voice shifted when he came to that realization, from playful and teasing, to a little bit nervous and a lot serious as he met Prompto's gaze.

Immediately, just from the tone of Noctis' voice, Prompto regretted the whole question for a win situation. Still, he also couldn't deny a little bit of curiosity about a lot of things. One thing in particular. Before he asked, though, he glanced at Noctis, appraised his face closely as he said, "only if you're sure."

"I'm sure," Noctis answered, though he didn't really sound it.

The first question on his mind seemed simple enough. Prompto knew that Noctis had a very close relationship with his father; that Regis was one of the only people that Noctis kept contact with over the years. Still, Prompto didn't hear much about him. For a few years after Noctis moved, he heard things. He got updates that Regis was flying out to visit Noctis in Altissia or Tenebrae or wherever else. Then, when Noctis fell out of Prompto's life completely, the updates stopped. The updates regarding Noctis _and_ Regis stopped. Prompto always figured, sort of, that people were doing it to protect him. To keep him safe from his own stupid sadness regarding the loss of his best friend. Still, the way that Noctis had avoided talking too much about his own life had Prompto curious. So, asking for an update about Noctis' dad, how he was doing, seemed like a safe place to start.

"How's your dad?"

The question was simple. Three words. Prompto glanced up at Noctis as he took his shot, and watched as he completely missed the swing, and almost fell to the ground with the momentum. He stayed standing, though, and turned to glance at Prompto in a way that suggested that _that_ three-word question might not have been the best place to start. Prompto clamped down hard on his lower lip and smoothed pondered closing the distance between them to place a hand on Noctis' arm in an attempt to soothe him. Instead, though, anxiety kept him in place.

It didn't keep him from overcompensating with an explanation, though. It _also_ didn't keep him from keeping his eyes on the ground so that he didn't have to see Noctis' face. "It's just... I mean... you haven't talked about him much. You know? You used to talk about him all the time, and I used to get updates on him, even if I didn't get them on you, even if I hadn't _seen_ you, but they stopped around the time that we fell out of contact. When I stopped talking to you, and when... you know, all that stuff happened. Like, when you were in town a couple of years after you moved to Altissia? For something that had to _do_ with him, right? S-so..." he paused, finally taking a breath as he glanced over at Noctis finally.

Regret washed over him immediately, as Noctis looked down at the ground, then ticked one shoulder up in a shrug. It looked like he was trying to figure out how to answer. Again, Prompto was about to step in and tell him that he _didn't_ have to answer, but before he got the chance, Noctis glanced up from the ground to meet his eye.

Sighing, Noctis started giving his answer. "Yeah. That thing I was in town for? When we were trying to get together, but nothing was lining up?" His eyes were on the ground. "He was in the hospital, Prom. It was, uh... remember when _I_ had to cancel on _you_ that Thursday? I said I had something I needed to take care of, and-"

"The hospital?!" Prompto's eyes shot open. "Is he okay?"

A bitter laugh was Noctis' only reply, as he shook his head no and set down his golf club, in favor of heading over to the nearby bench to sit. "He got into a car accident. Back then, I mean. Some drunk asshole clipped him, and he spun off the road and hit a tree. And, uh..." He paused to lean his whole weight against the back of the bench, and then looked up to meet Prompto's eye. "He died, Prom. Died in the hospital. That was... that was why I canceled on you. A few days before, Gladio and Iggy told me that you were going through some stuff of your own, that you barely had enough time to breathe, let alone time to, y'know, hang out? So I didn't... I didn't want to, y'know, bother you..."

Died? Regis _died_ , almost _five years ago_ , and Prompto was just finding out about it _now_? Admittedly, he didn't know how to feel at first. There was a pang of frustration and betrayal at the fact that he hadn't heard anything from anyone. Not even Gladio or Iggy. He'd have made time. He'd have asked Cindy or Loqi to watch Venia, he would have brought Venia _with_ him to spend time with Noctis if he'd had any idea that he'd been going through something like this. Forget the fact that Prompto would have wanted to spend time with Regis, too, before he died.

That wasn't important, though. What _was_ important was, "I didn't know..."

Noctis nodded. "I... I told them not to tell you," he admitted sheepishly. "I didn't want you, y'know, dealing with anything else, when there was something on your plate that that was so big that it had you busy twenty-four-seven. You had your own life, and I hadn't seen you in like, almost two years at that point. I felt like I-"

"I'd still have..." Prompto completely abandoned the mini-golf game, completely forgot about any score or anything else at that point, letting his golf club drop to the ground and crossing the short space between him and Noctis to sit at his friend's side. "I'd still have wanted to see you. To see him. To be _around_ for you." Despite the frustration in his words and the slight bite in his tone, he sat a little bit closer than usual to Noctis and draped an arm around his shoulders.

Clamping down on his lower lip, Noctis shrugged his head to the side. "I didn't want to interrupt your life. That was probably around the time that Venia came into it, right? You said she's five..."

With a bitter chuckle, Prompto nodded. "Exactly the time, actually. That was why _I_ was canceling and shifting times on you. And probably the 'stuff' that Gladio and Iggy were talking about me going through, too. S-so..." He paused, then laughed a bitter note. "Guess you're not the only one who kept some secrets, huh?" He turned his head to meet Noctis' gaze.

The sadness in his friend's expression was pretty clear as he nodded his answer. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," he mumbled.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you," Prompto answered, pulling his other arm up and wrapping it around Noctis' shoulders to pull his friend in for a hug. A hug that they probably both needed. Burying his face in Noctis' shoulder, in his neck, Prompto clung to his friend desperately. Regis was dead. Gone. "And I'm sorry for not being there for your dad, too. The way he was always there for me."

When Noctis reached his arms up to hug Prompto back, Prompto sank into the embrace a little bit more. It felt safe. Warm. Comfortable. Like this was where he belonged. Swallowing nervously, Noctis answered, "it's for the best, honestly. He didn't... he didn't remember much at the end. When he died? He didn't even remember _me_. The doctors said that the impact gave him pretty severe amnesia. Hell, he didn't remember who he was most days. So, it... it probably would've been hard for you..." As he recalled the tale, his voice grew a little thicker with emotion.

Noctis' dad didn't even remember him when he died? How was that even _possible_? Noctis and his dad were ridiculously close. Regis always, _always_ put his son first and... "I don't care how hard it would have been!" Prompto declared into his shoulder. "I would've wanted to... if I'd known..." he murmured, tears springing to his eyes.

"He kept telling me," Noctis croaked, "before the accident, to come home. To come see you, because he knew that I missed you. That I had—that I _have_ —a good life in Altissia and everything, but that he knew I missed you. I would have. I was going to... but I was afraid that you hated me. You know? For leaving, for not calling, for not replying to your messages..." He hugged Prompto a little bit tighter.

Prompto shook his head no against Noctis' shoulder. "I never hated you. I just thought that you... that you didn't have time for me anymore. For us." He paused when he realized how that sounded. "But I understood! I wasn't mad! I was actually happy for you, that you had this new and exciting life that was finally _worthy_ of you. Wouldn't have told you to go if I didn't think you deserved it," he added, pushing back from the hug just a little bit to meet Noctis' eye.

Laughing a soft, humorless note, Noctis shrugged his head to the side. "I know." He reached up and wiped a tear from Prompto's cheek. "You were so sure that I was better than this place, but-"

"You are, though," Prompto countered.

Noctis shook his head no. "I don't think it's anything like that, though, Prom," he insisted. "I don't want to be better than this place, because this place is where everyone I love is. Even Luna and Nyx are moving back here, now that they're settling down, Prom. Truth of the matter? Altissia is great, but it's not here. It's... it's not even close." He breathed a hollow laugh, his own eyes welling up with tears that Prompto could _see_ him willing himself not to shed.

To be honest, Prompto was torn between feelings. A part of him was ecstatic to hear Noctis say that he missed Insomnia so much. The rest of him, though, was devastated. Sad that Noctis had spent so much of his time feeling down, just because Prompto had always insisted that he was better than this place. Feeling lonely, just because Prompto had encouraged him—probably a little bit too much—to leave. Prompto's intentions had been good. They really had. He hadn't wanted Noctis to feel any regrets, or have any questions about what could have been. All it had done, though, was isolate him. Extending his hand and taking Noctis' in it, Prompto twined their fingers, before meeting Noctis' eyes again.

"I didn't know that you'd be so miserable. I didn't-"

Shaking his head again, Noctis squeezed Prompto's hand and smiled a slightly more honest smile. "I know. I know you wanted me to be happy, and I was. Hell, I _am_ , to a degree. But now... now I think it's time to reassess. Maybe, now that I've made a name for myself, there's a way I can have both," he pondered aloud.

Prompto quirked his head to the side, wondering exactly what that meant, but rather than wonder in silence, he simply asked. "What do you mean, have both?"

With a shrug, Noctis met Prompto's eye squarely and said, "I still have my old man's apartment. Iggy's been looking after the place for me, 'cause it's where I stay when I'm in town. You know? Could never bring myself to sell it. I could sell my Altissian and Tenebraean apartments easily. I've gotten offers for both. So, I-"

"What are you saying? That you'd like... that you'd come back here... for good?"

Noctis simply nodded. "It's like I said... everyone I love is here. Gladio, Iggy, Iris, Clarus... you..." He turned his eyes down to the pavement. "Even Luna and Nyx soon, like I said. If everyone's going to be here? I want to be here, too. I don't want to be in Altissia or Tenebrae, thousands of malms away from you guys. I want to be... I want to be here, you know? So that I know about things, and so that I don't have to miss more things like Gladio and Iggy's wedding, or I can know when people have kids." He smiled a sad but bitter smile.

Truly, Prompto was only paying half-attention. People Noctis loved. So that he could be with people he loved. _Me._ Prompto hadn't just imagined that, right? Noctis actually _had_ put Prompto into the group of 'people he loved,' and that wasn't just something that he was making up to make himself feel better, right? Then again, was it so insane? They always said things like 'I love you, man,' back when they were together all the time. They were friends, and friends loved each other. So, that didn't necessarily mean anything more than the love that two friends shared. There was no reason to be weird about it.

Allowing himself a tiny bit of hope, Prompto half-smiled. "So, you're gonna stay, then?" he asked.

Noctis nodded once, bit one side of his lip, and then nodded his head. "Think so," he answered. "I mean. Unless I'd cramp your style or something."

The eagerness in Prompto's responding nod probably should have embarrassed him, but he couldn't help it. Nor could he help the pure and undeniable excitement in his tone when he answered, "no! You've never cramped my style before, and I can't see you starting now. I'm-" He paused, glancing down at their twined hands, and then lifting his head again to meet Noctis' eye- "I'm glad you're staying. My life hasn't really been the same without you around."

"I imagine people would call it lame, that we've held on to what we had back then so strongly," Noctis said around a small grin, as he raised his hand to wipe the last remaining tears from Prompto's cheeks.

Prompto shrugged. "Let 'em. The only opinions that matter to me are you and Ven, and Ven's nuts about you already." That coaxed a bigger grin out of Prompto, as did the feeling of Noctis' fingertip brushing against his cheek like it was. Venia was crazy about Noctis, definitely. Prompto, for his part, was _very_ quickly finding himself back there, too.

It looked like there was a question on the tip of Noctis' tongue. Prompto wasn't sure what it was, but honestly, at the moment, it didn't matter. Noctis was staying in town. Noctis was back in Insomnia, for real, and _maybe_ they could find their way back to the way they used to be again. No. No, not _just_ like they used to be. They could be better now. Way better. Without any thought toward appearance or worry about looking like a desperate and clinging fool, Prompto threw his arms forward and around Noctis' shoulders, reveling in the safety that he felt right then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have some feels. :D
> 
> Also, side note: I always sorta assumed that gil translated roundabout to yen, which is why the big number!


	6. From All Sides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _booms like a system, swallows a sense of me whole._  
>  _love is the weapon that chases me there, rushing to you._  
>  _i'm the island, you're the ocean that's_  
>  _constantly killing me, when you're invading my mind..._  
> [from all sides](https://open.spotify.com/track/6ayL71SfICuuwexCnXAMgR) ;; lights

"She's great, by the way," Noctis mused as he hopped up on the hood of his car. "Obviously your daughter. She's got so much of you, y'know? That her personality put me way at ease."

Somehow, on the trip from the ice cream parlor to the Insomnian overlook, the conversation had turned to Venia. Noctis had a hundred questions about her, which was absolutely fine, because Venia was one of those topics that Prompto never got tired of talking about. Noctis had wanted to know what her favorite color was, what kinds of toys she liked, whether or not she had actually seen a chocobo. All of those questions led Prompto to believe that maybe Noctis had plans to spoil her just as much as everyone else in her life did. Especially now that he was staying.

Prompto couldn't help but smile at that. He was staying. Staying in Insomnia, staying with him, staying where he could get to know Venia. Just... staying. As Prompto ate a bit of his rolanberry sundae, he turned his eyes to glance at Noctis, who was digging his spoon into his hot fudge sundae with a smile on his own face.

Glancing back out at the Sathersea from the overlook, he nodded his head. "I try to do my best. To be a dad, not just a father. It's... it's not like I have all the time in the world, but I always make time to go to parent-teacher nights—even if my boss hates me taking the time off—and I always make sure that there's _someone_ there at her soccer games or her dance recitals. Whether it's Loqi, Ravus, Cindy, Nea, Gladio, Iggy... someone she knows and likes and will make her feel a little bit better about the fact that _I'm_ not there."

When Prompto looked over at Noctis again, he noticed that the smile had faded, and Prompto had to blink a couple of times at that. He watched as Noctis took another spoonful of ice cream, ate it slowly, and picked his eyes back up to look at the water again.

"Your boss gets mad at you for taking time off to be with your daughter?" Noctis asked.

Shrugging, Prompto nodded. "He gets mad whenever any of us take time away. Talcott—that's the kid who cleaned up the grape juice earlier—had to take a little time away for his SAT study thing, and he got, like... really mad. I ended up covering for Talcott as much as I could. Me and the nighttime manager, Crowe, anyway." He gathered a rolanberry on his spoon, as well as some ice cream, and shrugged his head to the side again. "It's not perfect, but it's how I support her, y'know? How I make it so she doesn't need anything."

Noctis nodded, but was still frowning. Prompto recognized the expression, of course. He was just barely holding back from saying _something_ , and Prompto had a hunch that it was the same thing that Aranea and Cindy always said. That he needed to work less, so that he could spend time with her. He spent time with her when he wasn't working, without hesitation. And it wasn't like he didn't _wish_ that he could spend more time with her. The time he spent with her was one of his favorite things. Right alongside this; right alongside the time he was spending with Noctis right now.

Yeah, he wished there was more of it. With things like school supplies, lunches, toys, clothes, snacks... all the things that he needed to buy for her? It wasn't a possibility. Aranea and Cindy had offered to buy some of it, but Prompto didn't feel right even entertaining taking that. Especially not with how they already tried to let Prompto and Venia live in their house rent-free. Prompto wouldn't let that happen, but that didn't stop them from always trying. Every month, they tried; every month, Prompto refused.

The expression on Noctis' face changed then, as he turned toward Prompto with a question in his eyes. At first, Prompto was a little bit apprehensive, because the fact that he really _wasn't_ where he wanted to be in life—if only because he really _did_ want more time to spend with Venia—made way for a dozen and a half questions that would make Prompto feel... awful. It was Noctis, though. Noctis would never intentionally make him feel like that.

It was that, more than anything else, that made Prompto ask, "what's with the face?" before quickly filling his mouth with ice cream to keep himself from saying anything else.

"I'm just... I'm wondering. I've been wondering since you told me about Venia." Noctis paused, casting Prompto a sidelong glance as he gathered up a little bit more ice cream on his spoon. "You're doing it alone? Like, I mean, not alone. You've got Aranea and Cindy and the others. So, I guess you're really not doing it _alone_ or anything. But you've, uh, you've never said anything about Venia's mom." His tone was obviously nervous, as was the look in his eyes, like he expected Prompto to be mad that he had asked or something.

After the whole discussion earlier about Noctis' dad, though, Prompto felt like maybe it was a fair question. It wasn't like it was a sordid story, either. It was nothing like what had happened with Noctis' dad. Nothing worthy of any note. "Nah, I haven't," he confirmed, like it was really necessary. If he'd said anything about Venia's mom, Noctis would have definitely heard it.

The question in Noctis' eyes, though, didn't go away. He looked back down at his ice cream, but in his expression, there was a question lingering. Prompto could hear it, almost. Was Venia's mom still in his life? Did Venia know her? Maybe even, just like old times, Noctis wanted to ask if he still cared for her. Prompto didn't hold any illusions to Noctis having the same feelings as he did—at least not as _much_ as he did, anyway—but back when they were kids, Noctis always looked out for him. Noctis always met his love interests and made sure that Prompto was with the right people. Usually—almost always—the answer was no. If he'd met Venia's mother, it would've probably been no different.

"Ven doesn't know her mom," Prompto admitted. "And I don't even really remember her."

At that, Noctis quirked an eyebrow, and it was almost enough to coax a gentle laugh out of Prompto. Noctis had no idea the funk he fell into right after they separated, and Prompto really didn't want to tell him. He didn't want Noctis to feel bad. Beyond the initial curiosity, he hadn't really asked, though, and Prompto wasn't really sure that he wanted to _tell_ Noctis about Disaster Prompto.

Much to his chagrin, though, Noctis asked, "what d'you mean?" through a mouthful of ice cream.

The amusement at Noctis' voice muffled by ice cream was only momentary, before Prompto sighed and glanced down at his waffle bowl. The ice cream was starting to melt, and it wouldn't be long before it started soaking his hand. He used the ice cream as a momentary distraction from telling the story, filling his spoon, eating it, and then letting it melt slowly. Shrugging his head to one side once it was gone, he turned to look out at the water and _still_ tried to think of the best way to go into this story.

Maybe, though, the band-aid method was the best way. "After you left, I was sorta... y'know, trying to figure out who I was without you." There was no bitterness in his tone, because he really didn't hold any resentment toward Noctis for finding his own success. "And I ended up one of those club guys. A barfly, you know? Dance clubs, billiard halls—I'm really good at pool now, by the way—anywhere that I could get a drink and maybe find someone to go home with for the night." They weren't Noctis. They were never close. But they were someone to make him feel a little less empty.

"I had a string of short relationships. Or, whatever it is you call it when you just... have sex with guys or girls you meet at bars. People you have pretty much nothing in common with, but date on and off for a few weeks because you have their number and you want to. The ones where you don't learn their last name or anything about them. You just hook up 'cause it's easy." Prompto laughed a soft, humorless note. "I honestly don't even know who Venia's mom is... but she's one of those. At least... I think so."

Noctis' expression was surprised. Not judgemental, not anything mean or angry, just surprised. "I wouldn't have taken you for being too good at, y'know, being with people without actually _being_ with them. You've always sorta been too much of a..." He paused and went quiet, like he was trying to think of a nice way to say what he was thinking.

If Noctis wouldn't just say it, though, Prompto would. "A clinger?" he asked with a little smirk.

With a one-shouldered shrug, Noctis nodded. "Kinda, yeah. I always liked that about you, though. How you were never shy with hugs or gentle shoves. Or how you always wanted the fairy tale. Meet someone, fall in love, live happily ever after. So, it was more that, that surprised me. The however many hook-ups," he explained.

All Prompto did was nod at first, because Noctis wasn't wrong. "Yeah, it wasn't like... it wasn't like, y'know, I was happy living like that. It was fun, and I met a lot of people, but I always felt like something was missing. So, I wasn't really that good at it. I was just sorta looking for something to fill that 'something's missing' feeling. Never quite found it until Venia showed up on my doorstep."

"Showed up on your doorstep?" Noctis asked.

Prompto chuckled. "Yeah. Literally. It was like a scene from some movie or something. I'm getting ready for work, and there's a knock on the door. I open it and there's this kid in a box. Not even a basket like in the movies. A damn box, man. With a pink blanket and nothing else. Whoever she was, she didn't even leave me with a name. The doctor said she was about three weeks old. What if I wasn't home, y'know? But whoever the woman was, she just left her there, with a note that said I was the dad." Even despite how much he loved Venia, and how happy he was to have her, he couldn't help but be a little bit angry for her sake, at the fact that her mom could never even be bothered to care about her.

Heaving a brief sigh, Prompto stirred his ice cream in his waffle bowl. "For a while, I still wasn't sure she was mine, y'know? Cin and Nea suggested that I take a paternity test and everything, which I did, but even before I got the results, I started to realize that it didn't even matter. Because I fell in love with her. Like, I'd've done anything for her already. I'd already taken on extra hours at work—and a second job, too—to pay for baby stuff, like a crib and toys and all the important things that a baby needs. It sucked, because for the first few months, I didn't get a ton of sleep. Almost none, most nights. She'd cry in the middle of night to be fed, or wake up right as I'd fallen asleep... so when Gladio and Iggy told you I was busy? They weren't kidding." That didn't mean that he wouldn't have made time for Noctis, though.

Noctis frowned, eating a spoonful of ice cream before turning to glance at Prompto. "But the paternity test said that she was yours, right?" he asked.

"Yeah," Prompto answered. "At that point, though, it kind of felt like more of a technicality than anything else. Like, she was six months at that time. It took way too long for the results to come back." He chuckled bitterly, picking up a spoonful of ice cream and eating it. "I got attached to her. I'd've tried to keep her, by then. Even if she wasn't biologically mine. But she is. And she's pretty much everything to me."

The look on Noctis' face was hard to pinpoint. It was soft, gentle, and very, very familiar, sure. But there was also a different layer to it. Appraising, a little bit, as he watched Prompto's expression for a few seconds. Prompto met his eyes, watching _his_ expression for a few seconds, and trying to pinpoint exactly what the expression meant, before Noctis closed the distance between them.

If this was a movie, this would have been the moment when Noctis kissed him. They'd have kissed under the summer starlight, with the sound of the Sathersea waves crashing several feet below them. Instead, though, and as much as Prompto _wished_ that Noctis had kissed him, Noctis just wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. For a second, there was another hard-to-define expression on Noctis' face. Regret? Uncertainty? Something like that. Whatever it was, it was gone just as quickly as it appeared, and Noctis tugged Prompto a little bit closer to him instead.

"You're a good dad, Prom. I can tell, just by the way you talk about her—just by the way you look at her—how much you love her, and that's awesome. She loves you, too. All she was talking about while you were upstairs getting ready, while I was teaching her to draw? Was how great her daddy is. How much she loves you."

Prompto didn't really _need_ reassurance of how much Venia loved him or anything, but that didn't mean that it didn't feel nice. So, Prompto leaned against Noctis a little bit more, smiling a lopsided smile and nodding his head. "Yeah. I mean, she gave me purpose again, you know? Found me, hiding behind what I like to call Disaster Prompto." He half-smiled at his own expense, because those days, he was very much a disaster.

Noctis slid completely across the hood of the car, so that they were side by side, a lot closer than they'd been before the hug. Letting his arm slide back from Prompto's shoulders, he gathered up the last bit of his ice cream from his bowl and finished it up, then lay back against the hood of the car, setting the empty bowl next to him. "I think we all had a disaster phase, though."

All? Did that mean... "You had one, too?" Prompto asked.

"Mmm," Noctis answered, staring idly up at the stars. "Mine was kinda... more of a lost phase. Right after my dad died. I didn't seek out guys in bars or anything, but I... sorta locked myself in my studio and did pretty much nothing but paint, or draw, or whatever. Remember the 'no breaks Noctis' phase? When I wouldn't stop, no matter what anyone but you said?"

Yeah, Prompto remembered those. Ignis and Luna and even Noctis' dad tried to get him to stop drawing or working on _some_ project, because he was going to work himself exhausted. When they couldn't make any progress, though, couldn't get him to listen, they always called Prompto in and had him _make_ Noctis stop. Tempt him with video games or drag him out to eat or to the arcade or something. One of those phases without Prompto... he turned himself a little bit so that he was looking at Noctis in surprise.

There was a knowing smirk on Noctis' face. "Wondering how they made me stop, huh?" he asked.

Prompto nodded.

Shrugging, Noctis turned his eyes back to the sky. "They didn't, really. I painted a _lot_ , got a lot of work done, but I was only eating as much as I absolutely needed to. Sleeping in my studio, hunched over my desk. Luna legitimately had to take me to her apartment and lock me in her spare room, to stop me from working. It was a little embarrassing, but-"

"Jeez, dude," Prompto frowned.

Noctis frowned. "I know. I just... work was the only thing I still really had. Made a lot of money, though," he mused, finally turning his head back toward Prompto.

That was good, Prompto guessed, but Noctis isolating himself was probably why he felt as lonely as he did most of the time was _not_ good. "We were always a little too codependent, weren't we?" Too codependent sounded a lot worse than he actually _felt_ about it, though.

Grinning, Noctis shrugged. "Maybe. But I'd rather be codependent _with_ you, than a disaster _without_ you," he admitted quietly.

Despite his best efforts, Prompto couldn't keep his cheeks from heating up. Yeah, that was definitely fair. "I mean, my disaster phase brought me Venia, but... yeah. I'm right there with you, as long as I still got her in the end," he mused.

The ice cream was finally starting to melt through the waffle bowl, so Prompto tossed it into the brush that stood a short distance from the car. After warring with himself internally as to whether it was a good idea or not, Prompto glanced back at Noctis, where he rested against the hood of the car, and then raked his teeth over his lip. They used to do stuff like this all the time, so he wasn't sure why he was so torn. Maybe it was because he realized that the 'something missing' that he'd been looking for, over the past seven years, was right here with him again. Because having Noctis back in his life, even just for a few days, made Prompto feel more like _Prompto_ than he'd felt in a long time.

As much as it was making him hesitate, though, it was _also_ what finally made him move. He leaned back against the hood of the car next to Noctis, folding his arms behind his head, and smiling at exactly how nice it still was. Even just this seemed to push the tension right out of him, and reminded him why he always felt comfortable with Noctis to begin with.

"So, you're gonna live at your dad's old place, then?" Prompto asked, turning his head to glance back at Noctis. "And sell your places in Altissia and Tenebrae? Like... really sell them?"

Noctis nodded. "There are buyers. I'd been thinking about it, even before I started getting ready to come back here for the reunion. I brought Carbuncle and Umbra with me, and I can have all my other really important stuff shipped to me here, so I don't really have to go back for anything but business. I wanna be here."

Before he could stop himself, Prompto said, "I want you to be here, too." After the words escaped, his cheeks flushed bright red, but he still didn't take the words back. They were true.

As a shy smile spread across Noctis' face, he slid a little bit closer to Prompto and then turned his head to look up at the sky. "So, I was thinking."

The proximity of Noctis' body to his was warm and gentle, and it was making Prompto's whole body heat up like someone was holding him over a fire or something. Not just that, but looking over at him in that moment, all warm smile and perfect body relaxing comfortably on the hood of his car? Prompto was pretty sure that this was the most picture-worthy thing he had seen in his entire life. Butterflies roamed around in his stomach like they owned the place, and Prompto had all he could do not to say something completely and totally stupid. Instead, as his hands gathered his camera from where it rested on his chest, he said, "yeah?" as he pointed his camera at Noctis.

Noctis nodded his head, rolling onto his side so that he was properly facing Prompto. It wasn't the same picture as before, but it was still good, definitely. As Prompto lined up the perfect shot, Noctis kept talking. "One of the old paintings I did was of something that I promised you I'd do forever ago. D'you remember the trip we took in high school? The sunset? When you asked me to paint it, and-"

"I remember," Prompto answered, waiting for his camera to focus.

Again, Noctis nodded, unflinching under the lens of Prompto's camera. He'd never really flinched at it, though. "I sold a couple copies of it. Made some decent cash from it and everything, and I always sort of felt like it would be wrong for me to spend all that cash, y'know? Since it was half yours-"

Prompto shook his head. "No it wasn't," he insisted. "It was yours. You painted it."

"But you took the picture. And I was thinking," Noctis continued, still not moving while Prompto tried to get his perfect shot. "That you could have some of the cash I saved. It's not a _lot_. It was my earlier work, and stuff. But altogether, I think I made a couple of million gil from it."

A couple _million_ gil from a painting of something that Prompto had taken a picture of? Prompto's eyes sprang open, and at the mention of the actual number, his finger slipped on the camera's shutter and he took the picture of Noctis a little bit earlier than he'd been planning to. "A couple million gil? And that's one of the ones you sold for _less_?" he asked, completely shocked as he lowered his camera.

There was a bashful expression on Noctis' face as he nodded and shrugged his shoulders. "I mean, yeah," he murmured.

Huffing a laugh, Prompto cleared his throat and muttered, "damn, dude. Well, wh-what about it?" Why was Noctis bringing it up?

With a shrug, Noctis turned his head back to glance up at the sky. "I was thinking. Maybe you could take the cash that's left, since it was a painting from one of your shots. I probably should've offered this years ago, but..." He trailed off, then huffed a nervous laugh, before turning to glance back at Prompto. "Maybe with that money and stuff, you could try and lease a place for a studio. Your own studio. You know? Start taking pictures for a living."

At first, Prompto was completely stunned by the offer. Money to lease a photography studio. Money to start his own business, instead of having to work his two stupid jobs. A photography studio of his _own_ , that _he_ owned and ran... was that really realistic, though? Could he possibly take money that wasn't really his—that belonged to Noctis, regardless of how much Noctis tried to tell him that it was his—and chase some crazy dream? Did that make sense at _all_? Gods if it wasn't tempting, though. A photography studio. Something that wasn't exactly traveling the world and taking pictures of whatever, but was a way for him to make more money than he was, and to have more time to spend with Venia?

Prompto just stared at Noctis with wide eyes for a few seconds, blinking wildly, trying to process exactly what Noctis had just suggested. He knew that he probably needed to say something, but words weren't connecting from his brain to his mouth at the moment.

"You can think about it, if you want to."

Thinking about it was a good idea, and Prompto _wanted_ to say as much. Again, words were failing him, beyond, "this is your money, though."

Noctis shook his head no. "I think it's yours. Like, it was from a project that we worked on together, Prom. So, it's yours, and I want to give it to you. I want to help you chase a dream that I know you have. To do what you _deserve_ to do, what you're _really_ good at," he insisted.

Prompto knew that he was at least _decent_ at photography. He could _probably_ make a living at it. Still, there were other concerns. Namely, "but if I take that money? There's so much I could do for Venia with it. Don't you think? Put it in her college fund, or maybe look into a house for the two of us, or-"

" _Or_ ," Noctis suggested, his smile still warm and supportive, "you could lease a building for a photography studio, so you don't have to work insane hours anymore, and have more time to spend with her. The rest of that stuff? Will totally fall into place once you start making crazy photography money. Don't you think?"

That... was a good point. More time to spend with Venia was something that Prompto always wished that he had. He wished that he didn't _have_ to take time off to go to parent-teacher meetings, and he wished that he could help her with her schoolwork every day instead of having Cindy and Aranea do it for him. He wished for a lot of things, and having his own business like this—having his own photography studio—would let him do most of them. Maybe, eventually, all of them. Still, it wasn't a decision he should've made this quickly, out of the blue like this. Not without thinking about all the risks _and_ possibilities.

At the very least, though, he could promise Noctis, "I'll think about it... okay? I mean it." And he did, too.

Once the shock of the offer wore off, they fell back into easy conversation again. For the next few hours, the pair of them sat on the hood of Noctis' car, talking about everything and nothing again. They caught up even more on what had happened since they separated—Noctis didn't seem to be bothered by Prompto talking about each one of Venia's birthdays, or her first day of school, or any of the pictures that he showed—and Noctis told Prompto about gallery openings and big sales that he'd made. Prompto told Noctis about some of the crazy customers he got at the store, too. Noctis had seemed particularly amused by the grandma who wore neon rainbow everything, and had her hair dyed neon rainbow, too; who walked to the store every day to get guava juice and chips.

By the time they finally realized how late it was, it was almost two in the morning. Grudgingly, because Prompto felt like they could have easily talked for another several hours without running out of topics, the pair of them piled into Noctis' car, to bring Prompto home.

It was... amazing. Noctis had been home for about a week, he and Prompto had spent no more than a handful of hours together, and already, Prompto felt like they were the way they used to be all over again. A part of him wondered if Noctis felt it, too. Two in the morning, Prompto wasn't tired at all, and the pair of them sang songs from Noctis' favorite My Chemical Romance album like they hadn't missed a day. Prompto drummed along on his knees, Noctis sang every word, and Prompto realized, without a doubt, that it was hopeless.

After seven years apart, he was still head over heels, hopelessly in love with Noctis Caelum. And worst of all? Or maybe _best_ of all... he was _happy_ about it.

So happy that, when Noctis pulled up to his driveway, he was really, really hesitant to even leave the car. He looked up at the house, at the fact that all of the lights were off—that everyone was probably asleep—and huffed a chuckle. It _was_ two in the morning. The sun was going to start coming up in an hour or two, and Prompto could confidently say that he hadn't cared less about anything in his life. He turned to Noctis, watching his friend as he leaned forward to turn the radio down and cut the car's engine.

"This was fun," Prompto announced, though it most definitely wasn't necessary.

Noctis nodded his agreement. "Really fun, actually. Most fun I've had in a long time," he answered, smoothing his fingers through his hair and pushing it back from his eyes.

Turning his head to glance back at the house for a second, Prompto chuckled a soft note, and then mused, "if it wasn't two in the morning, I'd probably invite you in for a cup of coffee or something, but that's almost definitely a bad idea right now, isn't it?" Quickly, he busied himself with unhooking his seatbelt and letting it slide back into place.

"Next time?" Noctis asked.

Prompto nodded. "Next time, definitely."

For a couple of seconds, the car was filled only with the very soft sound of Noctis' radio, and the city noise outside the open windows. Noctis turned his head, glancing at Prompto and quirking a grin. "Well, at the very least, I can walk you to your door."

That took Prompto off-guard, because it seemed like a very 'date' thing to do. In fact, Prompto knew for a fact that it was something that Noctis did on dates. He'd told Prompto about it many times, when he went on dates in high school and Prompto asked for the details afterward. Noctis walked the person to the door, then waited for a signal for a kiss. If nothing else, Prompto could at least rest assured that Noctis wouldn't do _that_. Even if he did, though...

The thought had Prompto agreeing faster than was probably wise. "Yeah, okay," he croaked, fumbling for the doorknob.

As Prompto walked around the car, he watched Noctis unfasten his seatbelt and step out of his car. Nerves were stupid. Noctis was just walking him to the door. It wasn't like Prompto _expected_ a kiss. Not even a little bit. Still, as Noctis stepped up beside him and placed a hand on the small of his back, walking beside him and guiding him up the front walk and toward the door, Prompto felt a twisting of butterflies as they moved around in his stomach.

"What do you say we make this a weekly thing? The night before your day off, so you have the time to recover before you go back to work? We can rediscover the city together, go to our old places and some new places and just... have fun. I think we've both earned some fun."

Prompto nodded. "We have. That sounds good, actually. Really good..." he agreed.

When they reached the front step, he turned to Noctis and shrugged a shoulder. "We don't have to wait until next week either, though. Like, if you wanted to come by tomorrow? Hang with us for the day, maybe play some games with Ven and teach her to draw? You're always welcome here. Bet Cin tries to give you a key once she finds out you're staying, actually," he mused with a soft chuckle.

Noctis half-smiled. "What, you're not sick of me yet?" he asked with a teasing little smile.

"Could get sick of a lot of people, but never you," Prompto answered, feeling his cheeks and ears heating up with an embarrassed flush.

Grinning, Noctis nodded his head. "Then yeah. I'll come by tomorrow. I'll bring some of my art supplies, too. Teach Venia to paint, maybe? Unless she already knows how to paint," he paused, shrugging his head to the side in an attempt at nonchalance.

Prompto chuckled. "Fingerpainting, and when she does that, more paint ends up on her than the paper," he mused with a smirk. "If you teach her to paint a real picture? You'd make her lifetime. Probably take my place as her new favorite." Also, Prompto would be doomed at the sight of it, but that was another matter entirely.

The soft and gentle smile that crossed Noctis' face then was almost enough to take Prompto's breath from his lungs. Noctis glanced at him from under a curtain of dark hair, eyes smiling and a tinge of light pink plain and clear on his face underneath the dim light of the front porch light. He looked perfect like this. Like the person Prompto remembered, but better at the same time. If Prompto hadn't already been sure that 'what he wanted' and 'who he wanted' was Noctis? That would have done it, right there.

"Wouldn't miss it, then," Noctis answered. "I'll be here at about noon?"

Noon. Prompto was going to suggest that he show up earlier, but considering it was two now, and at the most, he'd be able to sleep until ten, noon probably made the most sense. "Noon. We can do lunch, and you can stay as late as you want to stay," he agreed.

Chuckling, Noctis mused, "don't tell me that. I might never leave."

It was a joke. It had to be a joke, because there was no way that Noctis could mean something like that with him. All the same, Prompto managed a little smile around his awkwardness. It was probably time to go inside, rather than standing on the front porch and risking waking Aranea or Cindy with the porch light. Or even worse, Venia. Still, Prompto found himself thinking that there was pretty much nowhere else in the world that he wanted to be.

Despite that, he managed to convince himself to say, "I should get inside. Don't wanna wake Nea or Cin up with the light," and point over his shoulder.

"Wait," Noctis spoke, his voice a nervous croak... which was weird for him.

Prompto tilted his head to the side. "What's up?"

But, the very second the words escaped, Prompto was taken off guard and completely stunned by what happened next. It was like in a movie. In a stupid romantic comedy. Noctis placed a hand on Prompto's bicep, then stepped a little bit further into his space. Prompto's mind was racing to catch up, to try and figure out what was going on, but before it even came close... Noctis leaned in and kissed him. It was a brief kiss. Just a touch of Noctis' lips to Prompto's for a nanosecond. Not long enough, Prompto's mind insisted. It _was_ long enough, though, for him to feel it from his head to his toes. And it was _definitely_ long enough to send his mind spinning.

All Prompto could do was blink at Noctis when he pulled back and looked down at the ground nervously. "I, um... d'you... still... want me coming over tomorrow?" he asked.

Words. Words would be the right way to go, and Prompto _tried_ to think of a suave way to tell Noctis that yes, of course, he could still come over. Instead, what came out was a croak of, "yeah! Y-yeah, of course!" with a way-too-eager nod.

"Noon?" Noctis half-mumbled.

Prompto nodded. "Noon..." he answered, trying to come up with _some_ other way to react.

Noctis nodded, backing a couple of steps down the walk, and then finally saying, "cool. I'll... I'll see you tomorrow, then. D-don't forget to think about what I said, okay?"

"I will. T-think about it, I mean," Prompto answered, watching as Noctis sunk into his car, and then reaching his fingers up to trace along his lips.

Had that just happened? Had Noctis _really_ just kissed him? His pounding heart and warm cheeks said that yes, he had. As did the fact that Noctis was still grinning a little bit at him as he started his car back up. Only when Noctis was out of his sight, did Prompto reach into his pocket for his keys and unlock the front door to the house. Once he stepped inside, he leaned back heavily against the door, smirked, and laughed a soft breath of laughter. Noctis kissed him. Kissed him, and was coming over to the house the next day to spend time with Prompto and Venia. Just overnight, and he could see Noctis again.

Gods, it would be a miracle if Prompto could sleep tonight at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My face is the depiction of [this](https://media1.tenor.com/images/a7cb5ebf0e48deec6d52e49f9f1b5835/tenor.gif) GIF ATM.


	7. Still Into You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _let 'em wonder how we got this far,_  
>  _'cause i don't really need to wonder at all._  
>  _yeah, after all this time, i'm still into you..._  
> [still into you](https://open.spotify.com/track/1yjY7rpaAQvKwpdUliHx0d) ;; paramore

It said a lot about how excited Noctis was about seeing Prompto again, that he actually managed to wake up early. His alarm was set for ten-thirty, so he could shower and have some coffee before he headed off to Prompto's place, but Noctis ended up waking up at nine and being unable to get back to sleep. So, he got out of bed at nine-thirty, ate a bagel to tide himself over until lunch at Prompto's, and then, with a massive smile on his face, contacted an Altissian realtor to look into selling the Altissia apartment. The Tenebraean one could come later.

That phone call ended up taking until about eleven-thirty, and he glanced down at his phone, smirking at the three text messages he had from Prompto.

'See you at noon, yeah?'  
'Ven hasn't stopped talking about all the things she wants to show you since I told her you were coming.'  
'I guess I'm kinda excited, too. :P'

Kinda excited. Noctis chuckled fondly as he typed his own quick response, telling Prompto that after a shower and a change from his pajamas, he'd be over. Before the conversation ended, Noctis added a quick, 'I'm excited to see her, too. And kinda excited to see you.' It took a few seconds to convince himself that adding another thought, that they should talk about Noctis' spontaneous kiss, was a bad idea. Was it a bad idea? The kiss had been kind of impulsive, but it was also kind of reading from signals that he'd gotten from Prompto. Prompto was smiling that smile he always gave when he was talking about his former crushes. Prompto's eyes were soft, and maybe Noctis was imagining it, but he could swear that several times, Prompto had looked down at his lips like _he_ wanted to kiss _Noctis_ , too.

Maybe. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, though. Prompto hadn't said anything about it. He hadn't given any indication that he was mad or happy or _anything_ , which was more nerve-wracking than almost anything else. Noctis could usually read Prompto's tone, even through texts. Everything seemed normal here. Almost too normal, like Prompto was _trying_ to make it normal.

That was his thought process all the way through his shower, and the time it took him to get changed. A black button-down shirt, untucked, with dark blue jeans and his favorite boots. He could have gone all black again, but the way Aranea had teased him for "still having an all-black wardrobe," had him wanting to prove her wrong. The black shirt was kind of counterproductive there, but he hadn't really had a chance to go shopping since he got back to town. Plus, he was pretty sure he looked good in black... and he really wanted to look good if he was seeing Prompto.

Passing his comb through his hair, he gathered his keys and the piece of paper he'd put together with addresses of leasing buildings in Insomnia _just in case_. He'd been compiling them since the idea to help Prompto lease his studio had popped into his mind, and now that he'd proposed the idea, and Prompto had promised to think about it, it wasn't a bad idea to have the list on hand, he figured.

Just like that, he was on the road and ready to go and see Prompto and Venia.

As he drove, he smirked at the My Chemical Romance song that blared through his speakers. Fond memories of the night prior swirled around in his mind, and he heaved a happy sigh as he glanced around at the traffic at the stop light with him. People looking grouchy, or just less-than-happy to be going to their destinations. Noctis sort of felt bad for them. Up until this past week, he'd been one of them, truthfully. This was usually the time when the world would sweep the rug out from under him, and he was a little bit worried that it would happen again. Especially since he didn't know exactly what Prompto thought about the kiss.

Nerves had him reaching for his phone as he sat waiting at the stop light. The line of traffic was long enough for him to type a quick, 'we should talk about last night,' message to Prompto, and long enough for him to see that Prompto was replying, but as he typed, it started moving again. Cursing under his breath, he slid his phone under his leg again, and crossed the intersection.

The very second he crossed it, his ringtone went off, and his phone vibrated underneath his leg. Laughing a soft note at his own expense, he shook his head and glanced out the window at a couple of the buildings and houses as he passed by them. Admittedly, he found himself fantasizing a bit as he passed by a two-story house for sale. Him and Prompto, living there together. Venia with a room on the second floor, Noctis and Prompto sleeping just down the hall, and another room—or maybe two, that house looked like it could fit two more rooms—for any future kids they had or adopted.

It had been his fantasy since high school, and now it was even stronger. Funny how that worked. Sometimes things like that _faded_ over time, but not this one. One look at Prompto brought it all back.

Noctis managed to shake that thought off, just in time to avoid missing the turnoff to get to Prompto's street. Vague bits of that fantasy still roamed around in his head. The yard was small. Too small for Prompto to have the chocobo he'd always wanted, actually. Maybe, if this ever happened, they would have to find somewhere else. Somewhere more spacious. Prompto didn't really like the country, though.

With a laugh at his own expense as he pulled into Prompto's driveway, he shook his head hard. He was getting way ahead of himself, honestly. He didn't even know how Prompto felt, and Venia was obviously important. She liked Noctis, sure, but would she be okay with something like that? Most importantly, though—and worth repeating— _he still didn't know how Prompto felt_. They weren't even dating. _Fantasizing about a future with someone you aren't even dating is new for you,_ he told himself as he cut the engine.

Not that he'd ever really been able to see a future with anyone he _had_ dated, either. Most of the time, it always came back to Prompto. Crazy, especially since, until this week, he hadn't seen Prompto for years.

Noctis shook his head hard and pulled his phone out from under his leg to glance at the screen. The reply was short. A simple 'yeah, we should,' flashed across the screen. Three words, but enough to indicate to Noctis that Prompto wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to say. What it _didn't_ tell him, though, was how Prompto was feeling. Did he not know how to reply because he was _happy_ about the situation, or because he was a little put off by it? Pressing his lips into a thin line, Noctis decided that he could wait to find his answer until they had a couple of minutes to themselves to talk about it.

Maybe. Probably.

Whatever it meant, it didn't change that he was excited to be here and to see Prompto, Venia, and the others. Much to his surprise, though, there was another car parked in Prompto's driveway. A familiar car. Ignis' car sat a couple of feet to the left of where he parked, and he blinked a couple of times. So, Ignis and Gladio were here too, then. Since they never went anywhere apart, really. Did Prompto invite them, or did they invite themselves? It didn't matter, really. It would be nice, having most of the gang together again. It had been way too long. So, Noctis started toward the front door, a smile on his face despite his nerves.

Halfway down the driveway, though, the front door swung open and Noctis was surprised to see a tiny blond figure bounding down the driveway to meet him at the end. Venia, in almost-full blue Power Ranger costume, save for the helmet, waved eager hands and shouted, "hi Noctis, hi Noctis, hi Noctis!" Before he could even register to respond, though, she jumped into the air like she expected him to catch her.

Noctis caught her effortlessly, smiling as he picked her up and hugged her tightly. "Well, hey. It's almost like you knew I was comin', huh?"

"I did, I did!" She nodded eagerly, hugging him around the neck. "Daddy told me! He was real excited and Uncle Iggy is makin' rice bowls for lunch 'cause that's your favorite. It's my favorite, too!" She beamed as she pulled back from the hug.

Rice bowls. Prompto _would_ make a big deal about Noctis coming over for lunch and make his favorite. Or, have Ignis make them, as it were. Noctis turned his head to look at Ignis' car, and chuckled a soft and amused note. A part of him wondered if they'd come over because Noctis was coming, or if they'd been planning to come by anyway. It didn't matter. It would make it a little bit harder for Noctis and Prompto to talk, probably, but he figured that they would eventually get their chance. He turned back around to walk up the front steps, and smirked when he saw Prompto leaning against the doorway.

The smirk quickly turned into an amused smile, when he caught sight of the way Prompto's hair was styled. The back looked mostly normal, but the front, which normally hung down in his face in a mess of chocobo-butt bangs, was pinned back in a small braid with a pink bow. At first, Noctis just clamped his mouth shut, but laughter probably danced in his eyes. Venia's work, no doubt.

"Your hair looks great," was all he could really say at first.

Prompto broke out into a grin, and brought a hand up to touch the bow and the braid. "Thanks. Someone was excited because Auntie Nea taught her to braid, and I said that she could practice on the _front_ of my hair, not the back. She decided I needed a pink bow, because why not?"

Nodding a gentle nod, Noctis adjusted Venia's weight against his ribs and looked at her. "You did good work, there, Stylist Venia."

Beaming proudly, Venia looked from Noctis' face to his hair, and then declared, "I can do yours too! It's not as long as daddy's, but I bet I can make it real pretty!" She poked Noctis on the top of the head with a tiny finger and then looked at his face again, nodding an excited nod.

A glance back to Prompto's expression showed him looking at Noctis with a smug smirk on his face. Like he was saying _what are you gonna do now, Noct?_ Like he expected Noctis to say no. Noctis, though, didn't have the heart to. Instead, he just smirked back at her and nodded an eager nod. "You bet. If all your work is that impressive, I would be _honored_ to have you braid my hair," he announced, then turned to glance at Prompto, with a 'so there' expression on his face.

Prompto looked more taken aback than anything, and he broke into a warm and soft smile, gratitude in his eyes. It wasn't even a question, though. If Prompto could handle having his hair braided by a little girl in a Power Ranger costume, then Noctis could do it, too. Plus, he couldn't help but think that maybe he was more than a little bit doomed here. A couple of hours spent with her, and Noctis was already having a hard time saying no. Was already wanting to give her whatever she wanted; whatever would make her happy. When she leaned in and hugged him around the neck again, he deemed that more than enough of a reward for the momentary humiliation of having braided hair.

"Uncle Gladdy let me do his, too! He has lots of braids in his hair, since it's so long!" Venia released her hold around Noctis' neck and beamed a massive smile that could _probably_ make Eos bend to her will.

Noctis couldn't help but blink dumbly and turn his head to glance at Prompto. "Gladio let her do his hair..." It wasn't a question, more of a statement, and Noctis was suddenly all the more eager to get inside the house. It wasn't like it was with Prompto; he'd kept in touch with Gladio and Ignis as much as he could in his time in Altissia and Tenebrae, but _this_ eagerness was to see his old friend with braids and bows.

Smirking in response, Prompto nodded. "She used her favorite chocobo barrettes on him, too. It's pretty impressive, actually. Why don't you come in and see?" He stepped away from the door.

As Noctis walked inside, Venia started wiggling a little bit in his arms, and he set her on the floor. She bounded several steps ahead, then turned and dashed into the kitchen, shouting for 'Uncle Gladdy.' Noctis chuckled a little bit, at how excited she seemed by the concept of Noctis seeing Gladio's braids. Admittedly, he was a little bit excited to see that himself. It was as surprising as it was unsurprising, honestly. Gladio had never been able to say no to Iris when they were kids, either, which meant that he saw more than his fair share of crazy hairstyles and painted nails and makeup. Venia was probably much the same.

Prompto pushed the door closed, and smirked at Noctis. "Thanks, by the way. For humoring her." He reached up moved to tug the bow from his hair.

Before he could, though, Noctis caught his hand and shook his head no. "Don't," he offered gently. "I think it's awesome. How good of a dad you are. You let her do your hair, you play with her whenever you can, you encourage whatever she seems to want to do. What am I gonna do, tell her no when she wants to practice braiding on me?" He shrugged his head to the side. "Not a chance."

The smile on Prompto's face went soft as he let his arm drop back to his side. "I want her to be happy. Today, it's Power Rangers and braids. Tomorrow, it'll probably be Pokemon and make-up. My favorite was the phase when she dressed all of her Ninja Turtle action figures in the pink frilly dresses that came with her Party Time Barbie set. Let me tell you, Raphael looked rockin' in a ball gown." He chuckled a soft note.

Noctis laughed, too. "Hey, who's to say that Raph wasn't _supposed_ to be wearing a pink and frilly ball gown? Even mutant ninjas need to look pretty sometimes," he mused.

They locked eyes for a couple of seconds, and Prompto's cheeks went pink. A shade of sunset pink that Noctis committed to memory. A flash of artistic inspiration hit him for the first time in months, and he worried his lower lip between his teeth as he did his absolute best to memorize the exact shade, the exact color, that spread across Prompto's face right then. A sunset over a field of gold, like Prompto's hair. Like Venia's hair, too. The pink fading into blue like their eyes. His people. The most important people in his world. Funny how just that little bit of color was enough to finally inspire him.

Now would be an opportune time to bring up the kiss, Noctis figured. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he got the chance, a different voice echoed from the door to the kitchen.

"I was told I had to be a runway model," Gladio's voice carried down the hall.

Noctis turned his head toward the voice, and was unable to keep a soft snort of laughter from escaping. Disguising it as a little cough, he covered his mouth, 'coughing' one more time and then greeting, "hey, Gladio. Your hair looks great." His tone was probably a little bit sarcastic, but he couldn't help it.

With a solid nod, Gladio answered, "damn right it does. Got the best hairstylist in Insomnia workin' the case, Noct. Don't worry, though. Soon, she's gonna tackle that mop _you_ call hair. See if she can't make it look presentable. Right, Ven?"

Venia nodded and beamed. "I saved my rainbow ribbons for you!" she announced.

"Well, good," Noctis answered with a smirk.

As Venia released Gladio's hand and ordered him to turn around and show Noctis the braids, Noctis couldn't help a soft and gentle laugh at how Venia had him wrapped around her finger, too. It made sense. She was amazing, just like her dad. Sure enough, his long hair was braided in several random places, and clipped together at the bottom with a chocobo barrette. It brought a wry and amused smirk to Noctis' face, even more so when Gladio just shrugged nonchalantly when he turned back around.

Venia, on the other hand, bounded excitedly over to stand between Noctis and Prompto, taking one hand from each of them and holding them in hers. "Uncle Gladdy! Go back and help Uncle Iggy with lunch so I can braid Noctis' hair and Noctis and Daddy can talk more." She released Noctis' hand to shoo Gladio away.

All three men laughed softly, and Prompto glanced down at Venia. "What if Uncle Gladdy wants to come too, hm?"

Gladio grinned wryly. "While I'd love to see Noct sit there and have rainbow ribbons put in his hair, I think I'll go hang out with Igs and the girls while they finish lunch. I'm sure they'll send me back out to get you three when lunch is ready, anyway. Go have fun," he told them, backing a couple of steps toward the kitchen and then smirking a big, knowing smirk at Noctis.

That smirk made Noctis wonder if, maybe, someone had told him about the kiss. His head turned toward Prompto, whose cheeks were tinged a little bit darker red this time. He turned his head to glance down at the floor bashfully, and any question as to whether Gladio knew or not was out the window. That was okay, though. Gladio had always been one of the people who tried to convince Noctis to actually make a move; to finally be brave and kiss Prompto. The expression probably wasn't mocking. If anything, it was encouraging, knowing how badly Noctis wanted to be with Prompto.

Whatever it was, Noctis didn't get much more chance to think about it, before Venia gathered Prompto's hand back up and tugged the pair of them toward the living room. At first, the pulling was futile. She was small, wasn't as strong as either of them, after all. Then, the pair of them exchanged a look and a happy-but-shy smile, and followed Venia's lead into the living room. She directed them to the couch, told them each to sit down, and then rushed over to grab a large, pink, zippered bag. Jumping up onto the couch, she sat on the top of it, and grabbed Noctis' shoulders.

"You gotta lean back a little bit, 'kay? So I can braid," she announced, before immediately busying herself with braiding his hair.

While this wasn't talking about what had happened, while they were just sitting on the couch together, with some cartoon playing in the background on the TV, Noctis really didn't care, because he was _with_ them. After a few moments of whatever barnyard animal on the TV teaching a lesson about the virtues and greatness of the number ten, Noctis felt a warm and familiar touch of fingers on his. Prompto's hand snaked down underneath his, each of his fingers sliding into place between Noctis', and he laced them together, clasping their hands together into a gentle but firm lock.

It wasn't words, but it said plenty.

Noctis turned his head for a split second, catching Prompto's gaze, and if the motion hadn't said that maybe there was something a little more going on between them now, the look on his face would have done it. Soft, smiling from both eyes and lips, with a deep red flush peppering his cheeks now. He looked... happy. Really, really happy. A part of Noctis wondered if it would have been this simple years ago. If all he'd had to do all along was just make that move, just lean in and kiss Prompto so that they could both feel like this. The rest of him knew better, though.

All he had the chance to do was give a gentle smile back, before Venia huffed an annoyed breath behind him. "You gotta look forward!" she announced, turning his head and making him look back at the TV.

Prompto's laughter from beside him caught his attention, and Noctis responded in kind, with a gentle, amused laugh. "I got that lecture, too," he heard Prompto say, and then felt the light squeeze of Prompto's hand holding his. "It's important to follow the rules of getting your hair done, though. Ven had trouble with that when she got her first haircut and we had to cut it really short. Huh, Ven?" he asked.

Behind Noctis, Venia hummed an agreeing answer, and Noctis felt a light tugging on his hair as she tied the ribbon and moved on to the next chunk of hair that she wanted to braid. "We was only gonna get it trimmed, but I got scared, and even though Auntie Cin tried to calm me down, it didn't work."

"Went crazy uneven, and the girl cutting it had to cut like, an extra foot off. I was really surprised to come home from work to see her with her hair at her shoulders," Prompto mused.

Venia added, "you doesn't have as much hair as I did back then. So we'd have to shave you all the way bald if you messed up like that!" She tied another ribbon, and then hopped down from the back of the couch, standing in front of Noctis and glancing at Noctis and Prompto's linked hands. She turned to look at Prompto, and then over at Noctis, and then placed her hand on top of Prompto's fingers.

For a second, Noctis had worried that maybe the sight of the pair of them holding hands would bother her, but then when she looked at Noctis with a smile. Then, she lifted their twined hands, and slid herself so that she was sitting on both of their laps at once, she placed their hands on her lap, and effectively locked them in place.

"Does Noctis look pretty, Daddy?" she asked, turning to look at Prompto.

Noctis chuckled, turning his head to look at Prompto—at the pink bow on the top of his head, and then down to his eyes again—waiting to hear what the answer was. "I mean, I was styled by the most up and coming stylist in all of Eos, so of _course_ I look good, but what do you think, Prompto, do I look pretty?"

At first, Prompto was quiet. Then, he bit his lower lip for a couple of seconds, nodded his head, and answered, "I think Noctis always looks pretty, Ven. Don't you?" When Venia nodded, he continued. "But you made him look _extra_ pretty. Good work, Ace Stylist." He brought the hand not locked with Noctis' up to ruffle Venia's hair.

Again, it wasn't what they really _needed_ to talk about. Not even close. Still, it was good. It was a sign, maybe, that Prompto sort of felt the same way as Noctis did. Always looked pretty. It was Noctis' turn to squeeze Prompto's hand, and then he turned to glance at Venia, who was leaning into Prompto's side, but looking up at Noctis in a very detailed appraisal. When she decided that she approved, she turned to look at Prompto again, before sliding down from the couch, underneath Noctis and Prompto's twined hands, then looked up at Noctis with a bright and hopeful smile on her face.

"Can you teach me to draw more things, please, Noctis?"

Noctis nodded. "Sure," he told her. "If you get me some paper and a pencil or some crayons, I can teach you to draw a carbuncle, like I promised you I would. How does that sound?"

Venia's expression brightened, and Noctis felt his heart melt. "Yeah!" she announced eagerly, smiling a smile that showed Noctis all of her teeth. She turned, jumped over the table, and ran toward where Noctis could only assume was her bedroom to get the proper art supplies.

Beside him, he heard Prompto laugh. Noctis turned his head, watching as his best friend raised his until their gazes locked. "I think it's safe to say that she pretty much loves you."

"I love her, too. She's great." Pausing, giving the situation a short bit of consideration, and then waiting until he heard Venia's bounding footsteps coming back from wherever else in the house she'd gone, Noctis glanced over at Prompto and said, "though, it only makes sense that I'd love her so much, since she's got so much of you in her."

The surprise that crossed Prompto's expression in that moment was tinged with a bit of something that Noctis couldn't quite identify, but the fact that he hadn't told Noctis to leave, as well as the fact that Noctis saw the tiniest bit of a smile spread across his face, said a few things, too. Noctis recognized the look in his eyes as a look of thought, like he was trying to figure out exactly what Noctis had meant by what he said, but that was okay. At least that was what Noctis told himself, to keep his nerves from winning out and making him do something dumb like tell Prompto that he was joking. He wasn't joking.

In fact, he hadn't ever been more serious about anything in his entire life. He loved Prompto Argentum, more than he had ever loved anyone else.

Saving him from the silence that blanketed the room was Venia, who came running back in with a massive box of crayons, a book of construction paper, and a mechanical pencil for Noctis to teach her to draw. From the side of the couch where Prompto sat, he heard his friend murmur a quick, "I'm gonna go check on lunch. I'll... be right back," and then excuse himself from the room quicker than Noctis ever remembered seeing before.

A wave of embarrassment and worry hit him full force, but he didn't get a chance to think about it for too long, before Venia pressed the pencil into his hand and pointed at the paper. He forced a smile—even if it was a little more nervous than he wanted it to be—and took the pencil from her hand, before focusing his energy on teaching Venia to properly draw a carbuncle. Like always, it was easy to get his mind off of stupid things he'd said or done, or anything else that had happened, when he was drawing. Even if he spent half of the time that he _was_ drawing, explaining why he was drawing a certain curve or a certain dip in the image.

Venia, just like she had with the chocobo, watched every single move and stroke that his pencil made. She listened to his words, humming softly, and turning to look up at him as he talked every now and then, then smiled as the finished image of the tiny fox appeared on the page.

"Wow!" She smiled with her whole face. "That's what carbuncles look like?"

Noctis nodded his head. "Yup. I have one back at my apartment. They're funny. Kinda like cats, but they look kinda like dogs, too, huh?"

She nodded eagerly, and then motioned for the pencil. "Can I try?" she asked. "And maybe you can color it in while I try to draw one?" She smiled again, her eyes brightening up a little bit at the thought of trying on her own.

How could anyone say no to a face like that, Noctis wondered? He chuckled and nodded, handing her the pencil and taking his sheet of paper from the pad, before reaching for a couple of crayons. The white one and the red one, namely. Just as soon as the red crayon touched the page to color in the ruby spot on the carbuncle's head, he heard footsteps walking into the room and glanced up to see Prompto, all nervous smile and red face, walking into the room.

"Hey," Noctis murmured, embarrassed and worried that he'd screwed up the comfort that they'd found their way back to.

There was a little twist in Prompto's expression then, like he was trying to comfort Noctis or something, but his cheeks were still red. Despite all of that, though, he was smiling. He looked almost happy. Could he have been happy about what Noctis had said, or was he happy because Venia was happy, or was it something else altogether? Immediately, Noctis regretted making an idiot out of himself. He didn't regret what he said, because it was true. He did love Venia, and loved the parts of her that were so like Prompto. All of that _because_ he loved Prompto.

Still, saying it, taking the happiness and safety that he'd felt for the past couple of days with his old friend and potentially throwing it out the window just because he wanted to say an impulsive and probably stupid thing? That wasn't worth it and if it ruined everything, Noctis would never forgive himself.

Prompto silenced his thoughts with a hand on his shoulder, tugging him back from where he'd been leaning forward to color in the picture. "When you get a sec, when we go out to the back porch to eat? We should talk. If you want."

We should talk was one of those things that Noctis had always hated hearing. Especially in situations like this when he wasn't sure if he'd ruined everything or not. Especially when he was scared that he'd go from feeling like he was on top of the world to feeling like he'd lost everything. Still, he nodded his head. If nothing else, if nothing else at _all_ , he owed Prompto honesty. He owed Prompto the truth about his feelings and about how he'd never really let go of what he'd always felt. And he probably owed Prompto an apology. Not for what he'd said or anything, but for springing everything on him like this, too. For just coming out with it, rather than working up to it. For not taking it slow.

If that ended up ruining everything? Well, Noctis would be crushed. He'd be really crushed, and there was no point in saying that he wouldn't. At least, though, he couldn't say that he hadn't tried.

"Yeah, we probably should."

Venia turned to Prompto, and then to Noctis, with a slightly confused expression on her face, and Noctis bit down on his lower lip. Maybe if he apologized enough, things wouldn't be completely ruined. Maybe if he insisted that he wouldn't say anything stupid like that again, they could find their way back to the way things were before. For Venia's sake.

Before he could touch the crayon to the page, though, he felt a hand on his back, sliding up to his shoulder and resting there softly. A tender touch that took him by surprise. When he turned to look, catching Prompto's gaze and flashing a nervous smile at his friend again, the expression showing back at him told him that maybe things weren't as ruined as he may have thought. Maybe it was okay.

Maybe things didn't have to be like they were before. Maybe... they could be better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WOULD LIKE YOU TO IMAGINE NOCTIS AND PROMPTO WITH BRAIDS AND BOWS IN THEIR HAIR, FLIRTING AND BEING ALL LOVEY DOVEY.
> 
> TELL ME THAT DOESN'T IMPROVE YOUR DAY JUST A LITTLE.
> 
> You're welcome. ♥


	8. They Bring Me To You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _you looked like the sun._  
>  _i was the only one_  
>  _who could stare until you were done shining on me._  
> [they bring me to you](https://open.spotify.com/track/7gGvxzdNEd0wo6ENyaKp0T) ;; joshua radin

Lunch was filled with dozens of jokes at Prompto, Noctis, and Gladio's expense, for all of the ribbons and barrettes in their hair. Venia was proud as she chowed down on her rice bowl, and Prompto couldn't help but laugh as she got sauce all over her Power Ranger costume. She was getting better about eating since she started school, but she still had moments where she spilled all over herself. Most of the time, they happened when she was excited... and she was definitely excited right then.

The drawing she'd done was one of the cutest things that Prompto had ever seen. It turned out looking more like a simple white fox than a carbuncle, but that was okay. She was excited about it—incredibly happy about how it came out—and that, in turn, made Prompto's heart feel like it was going to burst out of his chest. When Noctis finished coloring his own sketch, Venia had taken them both up to her room and hung them on her corkboard, eager and excited to use Noctis' drawing to get 'way, way better and maybe even better than _you_ someday!'

Noctis' smile when she said that was enough to make Prompto weak in the knees. As was the promise that he made to her to teach her until she'd learned.

Now, though, dinner was done and Ignis was distracting Venia by teaching her to French braid. That left Noctis and Prompto to clean up the kitchen and do the dishes, which they'd done quickly, and then move to the back porch to finally have their talk. It was funny, in a way that wasn't really funny at all, how nervous Prompto was in the face of this conversation actually happening.

How many times, over the past seven years, had he thought about what he would say if it ever happened? Too many. And now, here they were, standing on the back porch, each with a rolanberry soda in their hands, staring at a sea of Venia's toys, not speaking a word. Prompto couldn't help but laugh at his own expense. In his mind, it was always smoother than this. He would look at Noctis, tell him exactly how many times he'd dreamed of the pair of them getting together, and tell him exactly how in love he was—he would do more, _say_ more than the nothing that he was doing and saying right now—and then kiss him.

Right now, though, he was doing none of that. He was staring at the red liquid in his bottle, the bubbles as they made their way up from the bottom of the bottle, and trying to come up with some way—any good way, really—to start the conversation. Trying. Not succeeding.

They'd already kissed. Noctis was the one who'd _initiated_ the kiss, no less, so there had to be _some_ sort of feelings there. There had to be. It wasn't just the one-sided attraction that Prompto always thought it was in high school. Right? That should've made it easier. That should have made him look at the situation with a rational mind, and just be able to speak up and tell Noctis how he felt. It didn't. Not even a little bit. In fact, all it was doing was muddying his emotions a little bit more. Not about Noctis. He still felt the same as he always had about Noctis, and he didn't see that changing. Not now, not ever.

What it _did_ confuse a little bit, though, was exactly how he was supposed to approach this situation. When he went over everything in his mind, he always sort of thought that he'd stumble. That much was true right now. What he never thought was that the stumbling would come from a curiosity as to how to bring up a kiss that had already _happened_.

"So, talking."

Noctis' voice snapped him out of his thought process, jerking him from his own mind and making him turn and almost spit the drink he'd just taken from his mouth. Instead, he just coughed a couple of times, covering his mouth with the back of his hand and shaking his head hard. Instantly, he felt Noctis' hand on his back, patting him gently and trying to coax the liquid from his throat. He wasn't really choking. Not _really_. It was more like... surprise. So, he waved off Noctis' hand, laughing a soft note at his own expense and then turning to shake his head again.

"I'm... I'm good," he answered between coughing fits. "Sorry. I was just... in my head and I didn't expect you to... I didn't-"

With a shake of his head, Noctis smiled a nervous smile and let his arm drop back down to his side. "It's okay. I shouldn't have... I just thought we... you know. I thought we were gonna talk and..." He paused, laughing a nervous note and glancing down at the floor of the porch. "I'm not sure if I was actually ready to talk or not. I mean, I _am_. I am. I want to talk about it. I just..."

Prompto nodded. "Nerves. I know. Me too," he agreed, nudging Noctis with his hip.

Smirking, Noctis mused, "so nervous that you choked on your drink," and nudged Prompto in return.

Yeah. He wasn't wrong. Prompto just shrugged and chuckled at his own expense. "What can I say? Take a guy by surprise when he's tryin' to find a way to start a conversation he's been wanting to have with someone for like... more than ten years? He's liable to choke a little bit." He cast Noctis a sideways glance, wondering if his friend would pick up his subtle confession there.

Of course, Noctis picked up on it instantly. He blinked a couple of times, chuckling an awkward note. "You too, huh?"

You too. Just when Prompto was sure that Noctis couldn't take him by surprise anymore than he already had... he went and did it. You too. That implied that _Noctis_ had wanted to have this conversation for a long time. Which... implied that maybe he'd been interested in Prompto for as long as Prompto had been interested in him? Was he looking too much into it? Hoping for too much? Was he letting his mind run away too much and not asking questions that he could have _actual_ answers to, instead of whatever non-answers he had at the moment?

The answer to that last question was a resounding yes, so Prompto just clamped down on his lower lip and turned his head to the side, tried desperately to verbalize his question... but fell short again.

Just like he always had, though, Noctis picked up on it and nodded his head. "Yeah. Me too," he admitted.

If Noctis could do that, then Prompto could spill his guts a little bit, right? So, he pulled in a nervous chuckle of a breath, and then turned his eyes to the grass instead of looking at Noctis while he spoke. "I thought that it would have faded a little bit over time," he admitted, "but yeah. I've had a crush on you since before we met. Like, it was you who made me realize that I even _liked_ guys, Noct. And liked you since we were sixteen. I think, for a time, it did sort of fade a little bit when you were gone. A little bit. Enough for me to actually justify my Disaster Prompto phase." He smirked and chuckled a soft note again, turning his head to glance at Noctis.

"But then I saw you. At the reunion."

Much to Prompto's surprise, the words hadn't come from him. No, it was _Noctis_ saying them. Like they were finishing each other's sentences. Like Prompto was saying exactly what Noctis was thinking or something. It was equal parts surprising and not surprising in the least. They'd always done that. Even after seven years, no one in the world knew Prompto quite like Noctis did... and Noctis was proving it again.

With a soft laugh, Prompto asked, "was that you finishing my sentence?"

"No. It was you starting mine," Noctis admitted, with a soft dusting of pink crossing his cheeks as he took a sip of his drink.

Wait. Seriously? Prompto breathed a soft breath of laughter, scratching a hand through his hair and trying to figure out exactly what he was supposed to say from there. So, all these years. All this time that they spent watching each other with other people—other people who never really made the other happy—and all this time they spent apart... was totally unnecessary. Because Noctis had liked Prompto for as long as Prompto had liked Noctis...

Except that wasn't the whole truth. Was it? Like didn't quite fit Prompto's feelings. Like was too simple. Not strong enough, and Prompto knew it. He chuckled awkwardly, but placed his hand gently on Noctis' forearm all the same. He slid his fingers down, letting them come to rest on Noctis' hand, and then huffed a soft laugh when Noctis switched the hand his drink was in and laced their fingers again.

"Like doesn't quite fit, though."

Once again, it was what Prompto was thinking, but it wasn't in Prompto's voice. Noctis was looking at him now, sidelong, as the pair of them leaned on the porch railing. He half-smiled, shrugging a shoulder and then turning to glance at the grass beneath them. "I mean. Like doesn't last almost eleven years, does it? Crushes don't make you think about someone and miss them, no matter where you are and how long you've been apart."

Noctis was right, of course. Like _wasn't_ the word, and he didn't need Noctis to say it for him to realize it. "No," he agreed, using the advantage of his hand and arm's positioning to pull Noctis a little bit closer and abandoning his drink on the railing. "Like _isn't_ enough."

With a soft, somewhat shy laugh—which was weird, because Prompto couldn't remember Noctis ever being shy around him before—Noctis mused, "I've practiced this in my mind. Tons of times, I've sat there in a quiet room and let my mind wander, trying to figure out exactly how to say this to you. I've wanted to say it for forever. Now, here I am with the perfect chance, and I'm an idiot."

Prompto watched him closely, taking in every bit of his profile. When they were teenagers, hanging around after school, walking around town together, doing everything and nothing at the same time, they'd often ask each other what they would look like when they got older. Prompto always used to joke that Noctis would look pretty much the same. Taller and probably skinnier, he'd teased. He'd never been happier to be wrong. The sun hit his profile in the right light, and it was like Prompto was looking at an actual angel. Like it was a sign from the heavens that Prompto was doing exactly what was right. In the right place, with the right person.

So, rather than speak—rather than give Noctis another chance to steal the words from his mouth—Prompto leaned across the short distance that separated them. He craned his neck a little awkwardly, half-leaned over the railing just to get the right angle, and then leaned forward to press his lips to Noctis' in an eager and hopeful kiss.

The soft-but-sharp inhale that Prompto heard coming from Noctis was reward enough on its own. Mostly because he recognized that sound as the one that Noctis always made when he was happy. When he was pleasantly surprised. Any doubt that the surprise was pleasant was instantly chased away by the way that Noctis turned toward Prompto and gripped the fabric of his shirt. Chest to chest they stood, with Noctis releasing Prompto's hand and letting that hand come to rest on Prompto's hip, tugging him a little bit closer.

Sure, the kiss the night prior was fine. Better than fine. It was amazing and was kind of a catalyst in breaking the levee that held Prompto's feelings back. This, though? This was different. Noctis was clinging to him like the kiss spoke clearer than any words could have—a sentiment that Prompto very heartily agreed with—and kissing him back just as hard. It wasn't a full-blown makeout session or anything. It was just an innocent touch of their lips, with hands that pressed to wherever they fell. At some point, Noctis must have put his drink down, too, because his hands were tangled in Prompto's shirt and on his hip, and Prompto's had moved to rest one on the back of Noctis' neck and the other on his shoulder.

When the kiss broke, though, Noctis met Prompto's eyes with a soft and shy smile. "Wow."

"It wasn't exactly what I was trying to say, but..."

Noctis shrugged. "Sometimes you don't need to say everything. Sometimes you just need to kiss it out, you know? I mean... that was... that was everything I hoped it would be when we finally kissed," he mused with a wry little grin. He still hadn't moved his hand from Prompto's hip, but the holding onto Prompto's shirt loosened its grip and went down to join the other, tugging Prompto closer.

Maybe he was right, but Prompto still felt like he needed to say something. Like Noctis needed to know exactly how he felt. How he _had_ felt and for how long. So, before he could talk himself out of it, he breathed a nervous laugh and followed Noctis' tug to stand a little bit closer to him. "Actions speak louder than words, sure, but sometimes words are okay. Like, I want you to know. How I feel. Is that okay?"

A nod was Noctis' only answer.

"And after that will, uh... will you tell me if I'm on my own? Or if we both feel the same?" It was stupid. Prompto shouldn't have really needed validation for his feelings. In a lot of ways, he really didn't. Noctis had never judged him for anything. This, embarrassingly, was kind of his way of asking _for sure_ if Noctis felt the same, or if Prompto was just crazy.

Noctis nodded again. "I mean, yeah. Of course," he agreed. "Wouldn't leave you hanging, Prom. You know me better than that."

It was true, of course. So, Prompto just nodded his head and pulled in a slow, steadying breath as he took both of Noctis' hands in his again. "I really... I know this should be easy to say. That I should just be able to come out with it and let you know how I feel about you, because you're you. You know? You're not just some random person who would make me feel stupid or whatever for how I feel about you, even if you don't feel the same." Although, Prompto had a feeling that Noctis felt at least _partially_ the same. "It's hard, though, for the same reason. Because it's _you_. It's not just some random person who I could stand to lose if-"

"You won't lose me," Noctis promised in a soft whisper, squeezing Prompto's hands and shaking his head no. "Whatever you're going to say? You won't lose me, okay? I promise."

Prompto managed a soft laugh at that. That was... exactly what he needed to hear, of course, and Noctis knew it. Prompto's trust in his best friend—in the man he loved—made it easy to believe the words, too. "Somehow, I knew that. Knew it and didn't know it at the same time, as weird as that sounds," he mused.

Noctis shook his head no. "Doesn't sound weird," he murmured, his eyes locked on Prompto's.

"I don't just like you, Noct. Like, of course I like you. Everyone who knows you likes you, because you're you. You're cool, you're smart, you're gorgeous—you've always been gorgeous—and you're... gods, you're just you. Which is why..." Prompto steeled himself from anxiety as much as he could. He locked eyes with Noctis confidently and tried to keep his expression as certain as he _felt_ about this. When he was sure that he couldn't psych himself up anymore, he finally said, "which is why I love you, Noct. One of the many reasons. I love you, and I've loved you since we were in high school. I just-"

Before he could finish speaking, Noctis crashed their lips together in a desperate kiss once more and smiled into it this time. When the kiss broke, Noctis spoke again. "I just didn't know how much I loved you until I didn't get to see you every day."

At first, all Prompto could do was laugh. A soft, brief laugh that bubbled up from his stomach and sort of just floated around in the air around them, breaking the silence. All he could really hear at the moment were a few cars in the distance, and a plane coming in for a landing at the Insomnia airport. A couple of distant birds, too, caught his ear, but his attention was just on Noctis at the moment. Yeah, that was more or less how he'd felt. He always loved Noctis, he just never knew how much until they were apart. That was kind of human nature, Prompto supposed, as much as he wished that it wasn't.

 _"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got 'til it's gone..."_ Prompto sang softly, with a little smirk.

Noctis chuckled softly, then shrugged. "Are you gonna pave paradise and put up a parking lot now?" he asked, and Prompto could only marvel at the amused and pleased twinkle in his eyes.

Shaking his head adamantly, Prompto smirked a wry smirk and raked his teeth over his lip in an effort to prevent himself from just leaning in to kiss Noctis again. "Considering I've spent forever trying to get to this paradise? Pretty sure I won't let anything pave it, now that I'm here." A pause, and another gentle breath of laughter, and Prompto mused, "that sounds... really weird, considering the fact that we're talking about us, but... my point stands."

"It definitely does," Noctis agreed, before leaning forward and doing what Prompto had been trying to avoid. He pressed their lips together, kissing Prompto softly, and then leaning their foreheads together.

No matter how many times Prompto had considered what it would be like, telling Noctis how he felt, he never expected it to be like this. Maybe he should have, honestly. Noctis was just kind of... like that. Since they were in high school, he took everything that Prompto thought would make him anxious, that Prompto thought would be uncomfortable, and made it feel normal. At least back then. The more recent things were a bit harder; the ones involving exactly how much of a mess Prompto had been when they were apart. It made sense in a weird way, though.

They were right back to that, though. Right back to the comfort that had always made them 'them.' More than that, honestly. It was more than their old comfort, because their old comfort had never made Prompto feel like he could just open up and say how he felt. It was their old comfort, but better.

Of course, even with all of that, there was still one thing that remained. One concern that was still out there, obvious, and it made Prompto flick his eyes back up to meet Noctis', from where they'd been focused on his lips, fighting with the urge to kiss him. Yeah, they knew how one another felt now. Yeah, that was definitely amazing, and yeah, Prompto was definitely glad about that. Still, just knowing where their feelings were wasn't quite enough. Not for someone like Prompto, with responsibilities to someone other than himself. Venia loved Noctis. Prompto knew that much. Noctis was pretty wild about Venia, too. He'd made absolutely no secret about that. There was just one question that needed asking.

"So..." Prompto started, nerves knotting his stomach a little bit, even though he had a pretty good idea of Noctis' feelings, "where does this leave us? What do we do from here? Like-"

Noctis chuckled nervously, then turned his head to glance at the house. "I think that's up to you. Like, I'm obviously crazy about both you and Venia. Still, Venia doesn't really know me, beyond 'that guy who draws with me and lets me put rainbow ribbons in his hair.'" With those words, Noctis' eyes went up to where the pink bows were still in Prompto's hair.

It wasn't as simple as that, though. "Did I ever tell you," Prompto asked, "what she said to me this morning? I don't think I did. When I told her you were coming over, she told me that she liked how you make me smile. That she thought that I should always smile like I do when I'm around you. I mean, I know she sees me smile a lot. She always makes me smile, too." Of course she did. How couldn't she? But, "she told me that it's different from how I usually smile. That I don't look as lonely when I talk about you. And that she really likes you and 'hopes that you can come over and play all the time.'"

A bashful smirk crossed Noctis' face at those words, and he let his head drop down to rest on Prompto's shoulder. "I mean, I wouldn't mind coming over to play all the time," he chuckled softly, speaking against Prompto's shoulder.

Prompto turned his head and smirked at the face full of rainbow ribbon he got. "Well, I think... I think that's what we do from here. Don't you? We do what we always do. We spend time together, hang out, do our weekly things that we talked about last night where we rediscover Insomnia together, and we just kind of..."

"Date?" Noctis asked.

Chuckling an awkward note, Prompto nodded his head yes. "I don't think we count last night as a date, though. I mean, we can. But if it was supposed to be a date? If we were supposed to have a real date, I think there's a couple things I would've done differently." Dressed differently, for one.

At that, Noctis shrugged. "I wouldn't've," he admitted. "Last night was perfect."

The words grabbed Prompto's tongue and tied it into knots. He was pretty sure that his mind had something composed to say—that he would have dressed and acted more date-like—but Noctis thought that it was perfect. Of course he did. "I mean, yeah. It was... it was perfect, definitely. A really good night. I'm not saying I would've changed it. Or... well, I guess I did say that. Didn't I?" he chuckled, leaning his own head down to rest on Noctis' shoulder, too.

"Kinda," Noctis murmured, burying his face in Prompto's neck.

Well, that was absolutely unfair. The warmth of Noctis' breath on his neck felt... good. Too good, actually. He smirked a little bit, and then mumbled, "I wouldn't've. Not really." He paused, lifting his head and coaxing Noctis to do the same with a tap to his chin. "But I kind of... I kind of want next time to be our first date. Is that okay?" he asked. "Last night was definitely good. Good enough to be called a date. But maybe we call that a... I dunno, a pre-date? Practice date? 'Cause now that I know that you feel the same way I do, there's a few things that I want to-"

Noctis silenced by leaning forward and capturing his lips in a slow and tender kiss. Not bruising like the one from before, but rushing like the one Noctis had give him last night. Was this the new way that Noctis would shut him up when he got rambly? Because if it was, Prompto could totally live with it, honestly.

When Noctis pulled back—Prompto smirked at the tiny little pop sound that echoed in the tiny area around them—he said, "pre-date. Practice date. A warm-up for the real thing this week. Right?"

"Right," Prompto breathed out.

Noctis nodded. "That sounds perfect. Does this mean that I have to wait until then to see you, though? Or can I, you know... come hang between then and now?"

A smirk crossed Prompto's face. "Come over every night. Pack a bag, bring Carbuncle and Umbra, and stay here all week if you want to," he joked.

Well, sort of joked. Truth be told, he actually kind of meant it. It wouldn't have been any different from the way they were when they were younger. Sleepovers, where they would share beds way smaller than Prompto's king-sized. Memories of the pair of the crowded into a full sized bed—Noctis' head by the head of the bed and Prompto's by the foot—flooded his mind. Times when Prompto would imagine what it would've been like to swap his body around and curl into Noctis; to make himself comfortable and lean into Noctis' back. The idea that it would've been welcome all along? The idea that Noctis would've been okay with it? It was equal parts nice to know and annoying.

Also, it made Prompto endlessly curious about what it would be like now that they were on the same page. Just sitting here like this, hugging Noctis, leaning against him, placing hands on whatever was available and feeling Noctis' body close, too, was a great feeling. Imagining laying with him at night like that was enticing in a way that Prompto both expected and didn't at all.

So, when Noctis laughed and said, "don't tempt me," Prompto found himself wanting to exactly that.

"I mean, if you think about it, it'd be pretty nice. Sharing a bed like we did back in the day, right? Granted I can't guarantee that I'd be as willing as I was back then to stay up until two in the morning with you."

Noctis smirked. "You were pretty willing to last night, though." He made a face that, even though it was several years older, looked exactly the same as the way it used to in all the right ways. The same curve of his lips, the same crinkle in his eyes, the same happiness and amusement that Noctis should always— _always_ —wear.

It made Prompto grin a lopsided and sort of self-conscious grin in response. "I mean, I didn't want last night to end. Was kinda worried that... I don't actually know what I was worried about, but I was worried. Maybe that I'd wake up and it'd have been a dream, or something like that. Tonight, I definitely can't stay up 'til two in the morning. Got a six a.m. shift, and I think I'm working until like... four? Maybe five." An eleven hour day, between both of his jobs.

The look that crossed Noctis' face was the one that he always gave when he was trying to hold back from saying something, and this time, Prompto was pretty sure that he knew what it was. The offer that Noctis had made the night prior. The generous one, that Aranea had told him that he was stupid for not taking on the spot. To be honest, Prompto was still torn on it. It wasn't like it wouldn't be awesome, having a gallery and being able to do his own thing, instead of having to work at a stupid store until he was drop-dead exhausted at the end of the day. It was still a risk, though. It wasn't like there was anything wrong with the way he was doing things.

So, he didn't ask what was on Noctis' mind this time. Mostly because he was reasonably sure that he already knew.

"I mean, I can pick you up from work. Maybe bring Ven with me and we can grab some pizza or something, and head to my apartment? My couch is comfortable for Ven to sleep on, and I can drive her to school the next morning and everything. And you to work."

When did this turn into the pair of them making plans for the next few days all at once? Not that Prompto minded. "I don't think I work until noon the next day at the supermarket. And I close at the department store, so that's ten p.m.-" Another face from Noctis had Prompto smirking a little bit against his volition. Noctis would disapprove. It made perfect sense. "So, yeah. You've got Ven really worked up about meeting Carbuncle, and if she ever found out that you offered for us to come over to your place and I said no, I think I'd lose my 'good dad' trophy.'"

Noctis shook his head no. "No way you could lose your good dad trophy, but yeah. You guys are definitely more than welcome. Pizza and movies. Any movies that Ven wants to see?" he asked.

Smirking, Prompto nodded. "Pretty much anything that has superheroes or chocobos in it. Bonus if it's superhero chocobos," he mused.

The grin on Noctis' face grew a little bit, and he took Prompto's hand in his. "So. I think this is the part when I ask what I'm supposed to call you when I talk about you with the others. Prompto, my very best friend, who is my favorite person in the world and I would do anything for? Or Prompto, my amazing and wonderful boyfriend, who is my favorite person in the world and I would do anything for?" he gathered his drink in his other hand, and filled the silence after the question by taking a sip.

Prompto huffed a nervous laugh. Not nervous because he was actually nervous—the concept of Noctis being his boyfriend was something that he'd thought about, dreamed of, for years. It wasn't an unwelcome thought in the least—but nervous because he wasn't sure if his alarm was going to wake him up from what had to be the best dream that he'd ever had in his life. It that was the case, though, Prompto wanted to make it really, _really_ , the best dream he'd ever had. So, pushing Noctis' hand with the bottle in it down, clearing his face of any obstructions, Prompto leaned forward and pressed their lips together in a kiss that was simultaneously slower and a little bit more intense than any of the others they'd had up to this point.

"I think you call me whatever you want to call me. If you ask _me_ , though? Boyfriend's okay."

Noctis smiled. This wasn't a grin, or even a smirk, or anything awkward at all. This was a full-blown smile. One that lit up every single feature on Noctis' face and made him look like some kind of model on a poster for happiness. Rather than answer with words, Noctis took Prompto by complete and total surprise and pulled him close again, kissing him and placing a hand on the back of his neck to hold his head in place. The other hand crept around his back, and Prompto felt the slight pressure of the bottleneck against his right shoulderblade. This time, he didn't pull away. It wasn't fast, but it wasn't slow either. It was tender and Prompto felt it from his head to his toes and all throughout each of his veins.

It was almost like he was made of ice, or plastic, or something, and the heat of the kiss was melting him from the inside. He rested the hand not locked with Noctis' hand on Noctis' chest and puffed out a soft, gentle breath of laughter once the kiss broke.

"Boyfriend it is, then," Noctis answered.

Prompto's chest still fluttered a little bit. Boyfriend. Yeah, okay. More than okay, honestly, but okay was good enough for now. Or any words, actually, would've been preferable to none. Instead, since nothing was coming to him, he leaned forward to press his lips to Noctis' again. Gods. If this was a dream—which Prompto was actually kind of confident that it wasn't now, because the feeling of that kiss could _not_ be faked—Prompto never wanted to wake up. Noctis was his boyfriend, and any dream where Noctis was his boyfriend was one that Prompto wanted to have forever.

Snapping him out of it was the gentle and rhythmic thunk of a knuckle-rapping against the sliding glass door that led to the house. Prompto's head snapped toward the sound, and he was surprised—though he wasn't sure why—to see Ignis leaning sideways against the door frame. His smile was smug as he looked between the two of them, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

In a tone that was equally as smug as the look on his face, he said, "that was quite touching. And, might I say, it's about time."

"Thanks," Prompto mused with a soft and slightly awkward chuckle. "What's up, Iggy?"

Ignis shrugged his head to the side and turned his gaze on Noctis, who was laughing a few breaths of soft-but-amused laughter into Prompto's shoulder. "Venia was asking after the two of you. I suspect that you'll wish to tell her of your plans to sleep over at Noctis' apartment tomorrow night, correct?" he offered.

Quickly, Noctis lifted his head and blinked a couple of times at Noctis. "How much of that did you hear?" he asked.

"Enough to know that the pair of you are finally a couple. I'm really quite proud of you, by the way. As someone who has had to listen to each of you wish that you could be together, the whole time you were apart, I must say that I'm relieved. And very pleased for you, if a little bit disappointed that it took this long."

Red and heat flooded Prompto's cheeks. "We're here now, though," he answered.

Noctis smirked, squeezed his hand, and nodded. "And not going anywhere. Except for into the house to tell Venia our plans, right?"

Their plans. Their plans, together, because they were together. Prompto was so dumbfounded by the whole situation that all he could do was smile—a real, true smile with his whole face—nod, and then follow Noctis and Ignis back into the house. Was there any way possible that things could get better than this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *violins swell*


	9. Ho Hey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i've been trying to do it right,_  
>  _i've been living a lonely life._  
>  _i've been sleeping here instead..._  
> [ho hey](https://open.spotify.com/track/1Mack10LMsmGP9SDeg6Tbf?si=MLcoASK6Q-KZ9VBkJbQldQ) ;; the lumineers

Falling asleep next to Prompto at night. Waking up next to Prompto in the morning. Eating breakfast with Prompto and Venia, after Aranea and Cindy left for work. All of it felt like something out of a dream. Out of a fantasy that Noctis knew he'd had before, a hundred million times. The child wasn't Venia in his fantasy, but the fact that it _was_ Venia made it even better. She was beautiful. She was a riot and she always had something silly or amusing or exciting to say.

After Noctis dropped Prompto off at work, he'd spent his day in his studio. Immediately, in fact, the inspiration from the night prior took him over and he couldn't help but paint exactly what he'd envisioned the night before. The painting was something of a dreamscape; Noctis' thoughts since Prompto came back to his life and Venia came into it. A sky that darkened from midday brilliant blue, like the blue of Prompto and Venia's eyes, to a midnight black-blue, spotted with stars that reminded him of Prompto and Venia's freckles. The field of yellow grain that reminded him of their hair. Half of it moved in waves, like Venia's did, and half of it stood still, like Prompto's; like a breeze had just started coming through.

Standing alone in the field was a lone shadowy black figure. The figure made no effort to get out, just stood there, with his shadowy head turned toward the sky, smiling. That figure was Noctis, surrounded by everything that was Prompto and Venia, with absolutely no desire to be anywhere else. It was easily the proudest thing Noctis had painted in months. Years, even.

Over the course of the day, Prompto had sent Noctis no fewer than five dozen texts. In the morning, they were pleasant. Reiterations of things that they'd said to each other that morning: how amazing it was to sleep actually holding each other for the first time. How it was the best sleep that both of them had in years. How everything about waking up the next morning and being together, enjoying each other's company and getting Venia ready for school together felt like something out of every fantasy that both of them had ever had. It reminded Noctis exactly how in love he was, and he could confidently say that he had never been happier in his life.

Toward the middle of the day, the texts became increasingly worrisome. Stressed out, complaining about work and how much he hated his job. Noctis humored him at first. He would joke and talk about coming down there to light the place on fire. Jokes, obviously, that would never come to fruition. At noon, though, that was when Noctis just wanted to drop everything and pick him up early.

'Can we just... fast forward the rest of today so I can come over there?'

Noctis eyed the text message once more. It was obvious that Prompto wasn't exactly having the easiest day ever. That things were the way he'd described them to be at work. Texts about angry customers, missing bits of product, orders that never went through, people calling in sick and Prompto having to cover them at _both_ jobs... Noctis fully expected that he would be dead tired when he got out. Even as the thought crossed his mind, another series of texts from Prompto came moments later, all but confirming that suspicion.

**from Prompto**  
→ Hey, so. Hate to ask this.  
→ They asked me to stay an hour late to cover for Crowe. She's coming in late cause she's having car trouble.  
→ Can you watch Ven for an extra hour? Pick me up at five instead of four?  
→ She'll be good, I promise. Maybe you can teach her to paint some.

Two things entered Noctis' mind at that moment. One was that whoever the manager of these stores didn't really care if their employees worked themselves exhausted. Prompto had worked himself to the bone for years, apparently, and he was still doing it. Noctis would do anything to make him believe that it wasn't right, but he knew that it wouldn't work. Prompto was nothing if not stubborn. The second thought was a worrisome one. Every time that he'd been around Venia, it had been in her own comfortable environment. In her own home. Noctis had gone to great lengths to make sure that his apartment was kid safe, but that didn't mean that Venia wouldn't be bored in the meantime.

Still, he couldn't say no. He _wouldn't_ say no, even if he could. Typing a quick response of, 'Of course, Prom. Don't worry. We'll have a blast.' He tried to convey confidence, tried not to let his concern and nerves show over the text message, but he was pretty sure that they fell short. It was about time for him to pick her up, anyway, so he quickly pushed the thoughts from his mind and stepped out of his studio to change from his work clothes and into something a little bit more presentable. Something a little less splattered head-to-toe in paint.

That something turned out to be a dark gray sweater and black pants. More dark clothes. Maybe Aranea was right. Maybe he _did_ need more color in his wardrobe. Still, it worked for him. He liked his style, and Prompto had never really complained about it, either. They were really the only two who mattered.

Combing his hair quickly—and then chuckling to himself when he realized that there was a dried glob of blue paint in there; briefly wondering how it _got_ there—he grabbed his keys and headed for the door. Early, maybe, but he didn't know if Venia's school let out early. It was better to over-prepare than not to be prepared at all, he figured. A side-effect of not having had any kids of his own was a complete and total inability to figure out how this was supposed to go. He had food. That was one of the first things he'd done. When he'd dropped Prompto off in the morning, he'd made a quick walk through the store, asking Prompto what Venia did and didn't like for food and buying as much of it as he could justify for one evening.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for an after-school snack, and a plan to order pizza for dinner, was pretty okay for now. He hoped.

Grabbing his keys from the hook and twirling them on his finger a couple of times, he gave Umbra a pat on the head and started toward the door, before a decision came to him. He stopped, turning to see Umbra and Carbuncle both watching him expectantly, and then grabbed Umbra's leash from its hook. Carbuncle looked interested in the situation, too, and eyed the hook where a second leash hung. Noctis chuckled.

"You wanna come too, huh? That's okay, I think Ven would be upset if she didn't get to meet both of you at the same time." Quickly grabbing the second leash and watching as the tiny fox rushed up to stand next to Umbra, waiting for his turn as patiently as he could, Noctis just shook his head. "You guys are more eager than usual. Almost like you know where we're goin' and who we're pickin' up," he mused.

Umbra thumped his tail on the floor and Noctis just smirked a little bit to himself as he moved on to hook Carbuncle up to his leash and then turned back for the door. "Now we've gotta hurry, though. Don't wanna be late."

Not that it was really a legitimate concern. Noctis still had a good half an hour before he _had_ to pick Venia up, but he was still anxious. The walk down the hall to the stairwell was filled with Carbuncle and Umbra tugging with all their might, forcing Noctis to move faster than he wanted to, and he couldn't help but laugh. More eager than usual. It really _was_ like they knew exactly where they were going. Noctis almost fell down the stairs more than once, and when they got to the bottom, to the front door, Carbuncle looked at him impatiently as he tried to unlock the door.

"Jeez, guys. Can you give me like... two seconds, please? This isn't your average walk, you know?"

A bark was Umbra's only reply, and Noctis glanced over his shoulder, hoping that it didn't disturb any of his downstairs neighbors. The door opened, and he led the dog and the fox to the car, unlocking it from a distance so that he didn't have the same issue. When he opened the back door, the pair jumped up into the backseat and commenced with a chorus of barking and yipping that probably would have driven Noctis nuts if he wasn't fully expecting it. It was a little more intense than usual, though. More excited.

It only stopped when Noctis situated himself in the front seat and turned the radio on. He still hadn't changed the album from the mixtape that he'd made for his date with Prompto, and he didn't foresee that changing anytime soon.

The ride to the school was a mix of excited pets pressing their noses against the windows of the car, and a nervous Noctis trying to figure out exactly what he was supposed to say and do. Venia's booster seat was still in the back of the car from this morning—Carbuncle was sitting in it like a king on a throne at the moment, actually—and he knew that he would have to flip to the kid-friendly station when she got into the car, but that was okay. Noctis liked Disney songs as much as anyone else. If a Disney singalong wasn't a good way to spend a car ride with a five-year-old, then Noctis didn't know what was.

Turning the car onto the road to the elementary school, Noctis tried to calm his nervous heart a little bit. It was Venia. It was Venia, and Venia already liked him, so it wasn't like he was on an uphill climb here. The nerves came in the form of the realization that if he did screw up somehow, he would screw up his chance of having the life he wanted. Having the love of his life and an amazing little girl and an instant family... it seemed almost too good to be true, and it was a real concern that it would all be ripped from under his nose at the slightest mistake.

"It's Venia, though," Noctis told himself. "She likes me. I won't mess up. She'll like these two and then we can paint after I make her snacks and... it'll be alright."

If Prompto was here, this would be the moment when he said something reassuring. When he told Noctis that he could do it. Instead, Noctis pulled his phone from his pocket and typed a quick text to Prompto, reassuring his boyfriend that, 'I'm in the parking lot, waiting for Venia. Is there anything I need to know?'

The notification that Prompto was typing was both a comfort and not. It would be okay.

**from Prompto**  
→ Dude. Already?  
→ Noct. You're like a half hour early. You're gonna be bored out of your mind!  
→ But no. There's nothing, other than meet her at the door by the gym. She's gonna be really excited.  
→ I introduced you this morning, so there should be no problem.

**from Noctis**  
→ Okay

**from Prompto**  
→ Don't worry, alright? She loves you.  
→ Almost as much as I do.  
→ So don't be nervous.

That manages to pull a smile from Noctis more than anything else. A nice little reminder that Prompto loved Noctis and so did Venia. Not that he'd forgotten the way the words sounded since Prompto had said them that morning... it was just a nice little reminder. Plus, it gave him a much-needed confidence boost and reminded him that, no matter what he thought, these were his people. If he wanted this life—if he wanted this to be everything that he knew it could be—he needed to get used to things like this. So, he shook his butterflies off, cast a glance at Umbra and Carbuncle over his shoulder, and nodded a resolute nod.

**from Noctis**  
→ Love you too, Prom.  
→ Can't wait to see you in a couple hours.

**from Prompto**  
→ Me either.  
→ Text me if you need anything else.

And with that, Noctis locked his phone, took each pet by the leash, and decided to walk them while he waited for Venia. Along the edge of the playground, out to the end of the school street, and then back to his car was enough to kill the half hour. He got to the parking lot just in time for the school bell to ring, and he urged Umbra and Carbuncle back into the backseat of his car before taking off in a half-jog toward the gym door. No one had come out yet, and the school buses were just pulling into the bus lane, so he figured that he had plenty of time.

As though proving him right, when he walked across the small basketball court, the door opened and a group of elementary school kids started pouring out.

Right near the front of the pack was a curly blond head of hair that caught his attention more than anyone else's. A smile spread across his face when Venia started weaving her way through the other kids and then latched onto his waist with all the might her little arms would let her use. "Noctis!" she exclaimed. "Are we goin' to your house now?"

Not even a hello, but that was okay. The excitement was almost better, and because of that, Noctis managed a laugh as he pushed some of her hair out of her face. "That's the plan. Though I do have a little surprise in the car for you." His smirk went a little bit coy as he crouched down to her level. "What d'you say? You ready to-"

"Uh huh!" she answered eagerly, before he even finished the question.

When Noctis stood back up straight, he noticed that she was holding her arms up over her head for him to pick her up, and he let out another gentle chuckle at that. Well, if that was what she wanted, who was he to say no? He bent back down, letting her hug him around the neck and lifting her up off the ground. She smiled at him and hugged him again, and if Noctis hadn't already loved her, this would have sealed the deal. A couple of teachers watched them for a few seconds, one of them smirking and whispering to her neighbor, before waving to Venia. Noctis watched Venia wave back, and then hug Noctis again.

Noctis walked them toward his car, and the whole time, Venia tried to guess what her surprises were. A chocobo was her first guess, and Noctis couldn't help but laugh a little bit at that as he gently told her that, no, a chocobo wouldn't fit into his car. The next guess was a Power Ranger doll, and Noctis made a mental note of that, but also told her no. That was when the car came into view, and Umbra and Carbuncle looked through the windows, one in the front and one in the back.

An excited gasp was Venia's only initial reply, and she wiggled in Noctis' arms to be put down. Laughing as he obliged, he watched her very carefully as she bounded toward the car, picking up his step to catch up to her. She carelessly discarded her backpack to the pavement, and Noctis picked it up as he got to her side.

"I promised, remember?"

She turned and beamed up at him, nodding excitedly and bouncing on the balls of her feet. "That's your doggie and your carbuncle?" she squealed as she pulled at the door handle, pouting a little bit dramatically when she realized that the door was locked.

Noctis chuckled and nodded, hitting the button on his starter and unlocking the door. "Easy, Ven, okay? You'll have the whole ride home to hang with Umbra. And all night, too, if you don't want to paint-"

That caught her attention, too, and she snapped her attention back to Noctis, shaking her head vehemently. "I wanna paint! You'll still teach me, right?" she clasped her hand and pleaded with him. As if there was a chance in hell that he was going to say no to a face like that.

Smirking, he nodded as he opened the door and told Umbra to get back so that he could help Venia up into her seat. "We can paint until we go pick your daddy up from work, how's that?" he asked her.

The smile on her face in that moment was more reward than anything Noctis had ever received for anything else in his life. He buckled her into her booster seat, and immediately, Umbra took to sniffing her and then licking her face. When Noctis closed the door and as he walked around to the driver's seat, he couldn't help but laugh an honest laugh—right from his stomach—at the sight of Carbuncle darting to the backseat to examine her, too. Her peals of laughter could be heard, even outside the car, and once Noctis opened the door, he tugged his phone out of his pocket, taking a quick video of the scene before he sat down in the car.

Once he sat down in the driver's seat, he sent it to Prompto, with the caption, 'I think they're best friends already, what about you?'

**from Prompto**  
→ Shiva's mercy, that's... the most perfect thing I've ever seen in my life.  
→ And might've been the savior of the rest of my day.  
→ Told you you had nothing to worry about, Noct.

A short reply of, 'Can't wait to see you again,' and Noctis tucked his phone back into his pocket, before turning and glancing over his shoulder at Venia. "What do you think? Ready to come to my place, Ven? I have some PB&J ready to make, and then we can paint until we go get daddy, and _then_ I got some movies for the three of us to watch together."

"The new Power Rangers movie?!" Venia asked eagerly, even as Umbra licked eagerly at her face.

Smirking, Noctis shrugged his head to the side and hummed a questioning note. "Maybe," he answered coyly. "You'll just have to wait and see!"

Bouncing in her seat, which made Carbuncle hop in circles next to her and Umbra make a couple of eager barks before laying his head in her lap, Venia nodded excitedly and chanted, "let's go! Let's go! Let's go! PB&J! Painting! Power Rangers!" She clapped her hands a few times, before reaching her hand down to pet Umbra. "I think your doggie likes me, Noctis. And your Carbuncle," she pointed out, watching with wide-eyed wonder as Carbuncle hopped down to the floor and then up to lay on the small span of lap that Umbra wasn't on.

With a smile, Noctis nodded and put his keys in the ignition. "I think so, too. Do you like them?" he asked her.

"Uh huh!" she answered. "Umbra's tongue tickles and Carbuncle is real cute!"

A bubble of warmth emanated from Noctis' chest and spread out through the rest of him as he fiddled with the radio station, turning it to the Disney station. Venia immediately started singing along to every word in the song, and Noctis chuckled as he pulled out of the school's parking lot. Umbra and Carbuncle both seemed completely thrilled, completely at ease with Venia instantly, and it was enough to make Noctis feel a whole lot better about the situation. He was still nervous. Still concerned that he would find some way to mess up. It was eased now, though.

Even more so as they pulled up to his apartment and Venia looked around like she'd never seen this part of the city before.

She was fascinated by the arboretum next door, and the butterfly garden a couple of blocks away had been a _huge_ deal for her, to the point that Noctis swore that he'd bring her there one day. One day, preferably when Prompto was there with them and would be able to enjoy it without being drop dead tired. Gods, Noctis really hoped that eventually, he could convince Prompto to accept his offer. That was all he could think of as he held Venia's hand in one hand and both leashes in the other, walking up the stairs to his apartment. 

When they got to the floor, though, Noctis was surprised and confused to see a bag hanging on his door. A grocery bag, from the same Pink Anak store that Prompto worked at. His eyebrows knit together and he released Venia's hand for long enough to pull the bag off and unlock the door. Venia rushed into the apartment, and Umbra and Carbuncle followed her shortly thereafter. Venia sat on the floor, playing with Umbra and Carbuncle, which left Noctis to close the door and bring the grocery bag to the table. As he set it down, exclamations of amusement and endless giggles echoed out through his apartment, and he couldn't help but smirk in spite of his confusion.

Still, he was definitely confused as he opened the bag and looked inside.

Champagne. Pink champagne, and a little crate of strawberries with whipped cream next to them, and a note on top of the whipped cream jug. All he could do was tilt his head to the side, lifting the note up and unfolding it to read what was inside.

'Use these wisely. Venia sleeps like a rock and we know you have a jacuzzi. A&C'

A&C was, without a doubt, Aranea and Cindy. Noctis furrowed his brows a little bit more as he looked at the note and then huffed out a gentle laugh. Seriously? First of all, how had Aranea and Cindy even come up with the _idea_ to drop off stuff like this at Noctis' place? How did they know he had a jacuzzi? That, he figured, was probably a pearl drop of wisdom implanted by Gladio and Ignis.

Why did they think that Prompto would even be _interested_ in using what looked like a pretty heavy implication to sex, after a long day of work? He'd have to tell Prompto after they picked him up from work. Or maybe not. Maybe he could just let them sit in the fridge and never let Prompto know about them at all. He'd have to hide them, obviously. Separate them. Not put them in there together, at least, so that Prompto wouldn't think that he was implying, or pushing, or anything that he wasn't really doing. While it wasn't exactly like the thought hadn't crossed his mind—it had, quite a few times over the years, actually—he didn't want to rush. They'd legitimately just gotten together the day before.

Breathing a nervous breath, he shook his head hard, put the strawberries, whipped cream, and champagne into the fridge, and opted to busy himself with making some sandwiches for Venia.

When he turned from putting the bag away, he was surprised to see Venia looking up at him with her bright blue eyes sparkling eagerly. He laughed an awkward note, setting the jelly on the counter and grabbing the peanut butter from a shelf, then turning around to pick her up and set her on the counter.

"What d'you think, Ven? You having fun here?" he asked her.

She nodded, smiling an eagerly happy smile and making Noctis' insides twist happily. "Yeah! I like your 'partment!" she announced. "Do you think daddy will be able to have fun here too?" Her expression went a little bit somber, as she looked down at her hands and her knees, and then continued. "I mean, daddy has lots of fun and everything when he's home. But when he works, he doesn't get to have any fun. And he's working a lot more than he's at home." She paused, kicking her legs a couple of times, and then added, "and he's always tired. Real tired. I don't think he does lots of stuff for himself."

As Noctis spread some peanut butter onto a piece of bread for Venia, his mind went back to all the troubling texts that he'd gotten from Prompto over the course of the day. How his day had been miserable, and how it almost felt _common_ for days to be miserable like that. That it was 'nothing I'm not used to.' It was definitely worrisome, and the fact that even Venia noticed it was a pretty big deal.

"We'll make sure he has a good time, huh? Watch some movies and maybe we can go for a walk so he can take some pictures. Or even just let him rest if he needs to."

Venia nodded again, looking up at Noctis and smiling a slightly somber smile. "Yeah! I just wish he didn't have to work so much," she told Noctis. "He takes real good care of me and Auntie Cin told me that he works so much so he can buy me toys and food and clothes and stuff, but I wish he didn't have to work as hard, so he could play with me more and do fun stuff with me. I like playing with Auntie Cin and Auntie Nea and Uncle Lo and Uncle Rae Rae and Uncle Iggy and Uncle Gladdy and you and everyone else, but... I love my daddy and I miss him when he works all day."

Noctis knew that Prompto loved Venia more than he loved anyone else in the world. He knew that Prompto was only doing what he was doing to keep Venia provided for and he knew, now at least, that Venia knew it, too. Still, hearing it from her, hearing that she knew and understood but still wished that it could be different? It broke Noctis' heart more than it had any right to.

That settled it, then. Tonight, he was going to bring his offer back up to Prompto.

"You know your daddy loves you a whole lot, right Ven?" Noctis asked her as he set the bread with the peanut butter on it off to the side, and then moved to put jelly on the other side.

She nodded, her smile becoming more genuine as she stuck her finger in the peanut butter and put it in her mouth. "I know!" she beamed proudly. "Daddy loves me and I love Daddy a whole bunch. He's the bravest, coolest, smartest, nicest, prettiest person I know." As she talked, her posture straightened and her chest puffed out proudly, and it made Noctis wonder which one was prouder of the other: Prompto or Venia.

With a smirk, Noctis closed Venia's peanut butter sandwich, cut the crusts off like Prompto told him she liked, cut it in half, and handed one half to her. "You're pretty awesome, you know that?" he asked, moving on to his own sandwich.

In response, she picked up the other half of the sandwich and handed it to Noctis, telling him wordlessly that she wanted to share instead. He smirked a little bit and quickly set it back down to seal the peanut butter, jelly, and bread. Then, he picked it back up and tore a tiny piece from it, before eating it. "Thanks, Ven. You're a good sharer."

"My teacher says so, too!" she announced proudly.

A short pause had Noctis thinking about the whole situation. Venia seemed to like him. Venia seemed to approve of the way he and Prompto were when they were together. It wasn't really his place to talk about relationships with Prompto's daughter or anything. Venia seemed to be pretty okay with Gladio and Ignis, or Aranea and Cindy, or even Ravus and Loqi, but Noctis didn't know how open he was with Venia about his _own_ situation in that regard, so he didn't say anything more. Maybe Prompto could talk to her later, or maybe they could talk to her together, or something like that. If Prompto even felt like it was necessary, anyway.

As though she was determined to bust every single bit of anxiety that Noctis had, though, Venia just smiled up at him with a face covered in peanut butter, and said, "I think Daddy loves you, too, Noctis," through a full mouth. "He's always happy when he's with you. Like he is when he's with me but it's different, too. Auntie Nea said that you guys was best friends when you were younger, too. Before I was born."

Noctis just nodded, a little bit dumbfounded by the declaration.

"I'm glad you is friends again. I'm glad I get to play with you a lot, too. 'Cause I love you."

As soon as the words escaped Venia's mouth, peanut buttery though they were, Noctis choked on his own sandwich and coughed a couple of times as he leaned forward on the counter. Not because the words were unwelcome—not even a little bit, actually—but more because he was taken completely off-guard. They were the last things he ever really expected to hear from Venia, who was looking at him with concern furrowing her brow now, and eyes wide with concern.

When he stopped coughing, finally, she asked, "are you okay?"

Noctis just nodded at first, then finally managed to gather himself enough to answer, "yeah! Yeah, I'm fine, Ven. And I love you, too. I'm glad you love me."

Venia smiled a pride-filled smile and tugged on Noctis' sleeve, trying to pull him toward her. He followed her tug, and then she took him by surprise when she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a peanut buttery kiss on the cheek. Honestly, Noctis couldn't have cared less about the mess if he tried. Instead, he just leaned down and hugged her in return.

"Daddy loves you, and you make Daddy happy. And I can tell you love Daddy just like how Auntie 'Nea loves Auntie Cin and how Uncle Gladdy loves Uncle Iggy and Uncle Ravus loves Uncle Lolo. You look at him the same way they look at them and it makes me happy 'cause I don't like thinkin' about daddy bein' lonely. He deserves to have someone love him like that."

Kids, Noctis decided, were smarter than people usually gave them credit for. Most of the time, people wouldn't have considered a kid to be able to determine what looks of love between couples looked like. Venia, though, had figured Noctis out. She'd put two and two together, and realized exactly how much he loved Prompto just by watching them together. She, he decided, was the most incredible little girl in the world. And he was glad that he was lucky enough to have her in his life. To have _both_ of them in his life. He was glad—really glad—that he'd let Gladio and Ignis convince him to come back to the reunion so that he had a second chance at this life.

When he pulled back from the hug, he looked Venia in the eye with a gentle smile. "I love him a lot, Ven. I love both of you a lot. And I'm gonna do whatever I can from here on to make sure that both you and your Daddy are always happy. Okay?" he promised.

"Does that mean you're my daddy, too?" she asked.

Today, he realized, Venia was asking the really hard questions. He also realized that he had absolutely no idea how to answer that, beyond saying, "I think that's up to your Daddy, Ven. I love your Daddy a lot, but we've only been together for a day." If she even knew what that meant. "So, maybe in a while? But for right now? How about we be really good friends and make sure we know how much we love each other, huh? And make sure Daddy knows how much we both love him."

That answer seemed to satisfy her, and she nodded with a big smile on her face once again. "That sounds good," she answered, taking another bite of her sandwich and wiggling her feet, the backs of her heels hitting the cabinet as she bopped her head to an imaginary song.

Crisis averted. Though he wondered, deep down, if he should tell Prompto about it. Maybe Prompto would be able to explain the whole situation better than he would; to make her understand beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was way too soon for talk like that. Way too soon for him to consider himself another daddy for Venia. It was. It _definitely_ was.

Wasn't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just when you thought I'd given all the fluff I had to give. :3


	10. Something I Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _and i had the week that came from hell;_  
>  _and yes i know that you could tell._  
>  _but you're like the net under the ledge,_  
>  _when I go flying off the edge..._  
> [something i need](https://open.spotify.com/track/4KANJH1baadr3U7XsVbM17?si=weH9yLI3QlS_H_YjVyEaRQ) ;; onerepublic

"I'm just gonna... lay on my face. If I look dead, poke me. I'll grunt if I'm actually not dead."

Prompto sighed and hugged Noctis' pillow a little bit tighter to him. It had taken a concentrated effort not to fall asleep in the middle of the movie. Noctis had, of course, outdone himself and gotten exactly the movie that Venia had wanted to see. The only thing that kept him awake was the way that Venia turned around and squealed with delight at both of them every single time the talking superhero chocobo and her human friend did something 'cool.' Admittedly, a couple of times, he'd almost dozed off with his head against Noctis' shoulder, only to be woken up when Venia turned around and announced this as 'the best part of the movie,' even though she'd never seen it before.

She'd worn herself out pretty thoroughly, though, and fallen asleep on Noctis' couch with Umbra at her feet and Carbuncle laying on her chest. It was the cutest thing he'd ever seen, and he'd snapped a picture with the plan to send it to Aranea and Cindy, before following behind Noctis, down the hall, and to his bedroom.

This apartment was just how Prompto remembered it when Noctis' dad had lived here, just a little bit different. Noctis' old room wasn't a bedroom anymore. It had been converted into a studio, and Noctis was sleeping in what used to be his dad's old room. They'd walked past the studio, with Noctis making a promise that he would show Prompto what he was working on later, and as much as he was tempted to insist—as much as he _wanted_ to see it—he was really, really tired. The second Noctis opened the door to his bedroom, Prompto did a face plant onto his bed, and spoke in murmured words into Noctis' pillow as he hugged it tightly.

Noctis laughed from a couple of feet away, closing the distance between them and sitting on the bed right next to Prompto's middle. "I mean, it'd suck if you died," he insisted. "And it'd _really_ suck if I had to soak in the jacuzzi all on my own, don't you think?" he asked, turning his body just slightly and smoothing Prompto's hair back.

Jacuzzi. On the one hand, that sounded like absolute, complete, total heaven. Prompto's aching muscles and tired body were screaming at him that _yes_ , a soak in the hot tub was exactly what he needed after the day he'd had. Especially if Noctis was there with him. On the other hand, though, that meant moving from this spot, and he really was pretty comfortable here. Noctis' bed was soft, Noctis' presence beside him was even nicer, and it felt like home.

Instinct and the need to relax a little bit before immediately falling asleep—plus the desire to be with Noctis for a little bit longer—won out in the end, and he ended up slowly and tiredly pushing himself up onto his hands and knees on the bed. "You really know how to tempt a guy away from a sound sleep, Noct," he teased as he slowly backed off of the bed and stood up again.

Standing reminded him exactly how tired his feet were, though. "After the day I had, you'll probably have a hard time getting me out of the hot tub, honestly," he mused, stretching his arms behind him and watching as Noctis pushed himself up to his own feet.

"Need some trunks?" Noctis asked.

The temptation was there to be a complete flirt and say no. Say that he _didn't_ need trunks at all, because what need would there be. Still, it was probably _smarter_ to wear them. Probably _smarter_ not to just jump into Noctis' hot tub, stark naked, and pretty much lay his cards on the table, telling Noctis that his mind was pretty much already at that point. To be fair, though, it wasn't so much an already. He'd had feelings for Noctis for _ages_. For what felt like a _lifetime_. So, of course, his mind would already be traveling that particular road.

Plus, Noctis was an attractive man. Like, really attractive. Like, some of the women he worked with were _jealous_ , because he was so attractive. The woman at the deli overheard him telling Crowe about Noctis picking him up, saw the selfie over Prompto's shoulder, and commented about exactly how lucky Prompto was. That "men that attractive aren't exactly a dime a dozen." And she was totally right.

Not that Prompto was suddenly a guru about such things, but he'd seen his fair share of men. Noctis definitely left all of them in the dust.

It occurred to Prompto right then that he hadn't exactly answered Noctis' question, and the smirk on Noctis' face led Prompto to believe that his boyfriend's mind was at least _somewhat_ in the same place as Prompto's own. Good to know. Really good to know, actually. A little half-smile, maybe a little bit coyer than it should have been, crossed Prompto's face before he answered.

"Yeah." The answer was partway a tease. The second part was a subtle hint, though. "At least to start."

Noctis laughed a soft note as he turned around. "To start, huh?" he asked as he walked into the massive closet and pulled out a pair of black swim trunks. Black. Just like everything else his friend wore. When Noctis tossed them over his shoulder and they landed a couple of feet to Prompto's right, it coaxed a chuckle from Prompto as he picked them up.

"S'what I said," Prompto answered, his tone a little bit shy.

A laugh was Noctis' initial reply, followed quickly by, "good to know."

It was funny, because his tone, his words, weren't shy because he felt particularly _awkward_ around Noctis. It was partially that, sure. Fantasize enough about something and nerves were natural when you were finally presented with it. But it was more the fact that Prompto couldn't really remember the last time he'd actually _had_ sex. Obviously, he had since Venia was born. Dates and stuff that actually managed to go well, until they _met_ Venia and were scared off by the reality of dating a parent. At some point, a couple of years ago, he'd just stopped dating. The last date he really remembered went south the moment he _mentioned_ that he had a daughter. The partner before that was probably the last time he'd had sex, honestly.

Huffing a laugh at that thought, Prompto tugged his shirt up and over his shoulders and watched as Noctis completely disappeared into the walk-in closet. Probably changing in there, and giving Prompto his privacy. Not that it mattered. They'd come out of their respective changing places wearing less than what they'd gone in with, and it wasn't like Prompto hadn't seen Noctis in swim trunks before.

The rest of Prompto's change went quickly. He tugged his jeans and boxers off, then tugged the swim-trunks on, pulling the drawstrings as tight as they would go. Noctis had always had a slightly bigger waist than Prompto, because of the sheer amount of muscle that his boyfriend had always had. Now, though, there was a little bit less of a discrepancy. Years ago, Prompto would have had a ton of extra drawstring to tie, but it was a little bit easier now.

When Noctis slid the closet door open and stepped out, with his clothes draped over his arm, Prompto felt his words completely trail off. This was... way different from the way Noctis _used_ to look with his shirt off. Where there used to be a thin and lanky stature now stood muscles that drew an intricate pattern on his abdomen; not quite as bulky as Gladio's muscles but that suited him all the better, honestly. He also had slightly broader shoulders than he used to, and a posture that was almost royal, in a weird way.

Suddenly, Prompto felt a _little_ bit awkward in comparison. After all, he was still pretty much the same lanky, thin person. Yeah, he'd filled out a little bit—to the point that the drawstring wasn't pulled as far as before—but Noctis looked... amazing. The awkwardness was quickly outweighed by exactly how nice Noctis was to look at now. The way he quirked his lips up in a smile that was half-shy, half fully-aware of how good he looked, and the way his light stubble perfectly accented the look of it? Prompto was doomed. He was just... doomed.

"You look good," Prompto mused with a half-smile.

Noctis stepped forward, closing the space between them and placing a hand on either side of Prompto's hips. He leaned down into Prompto's space and made it look like he was going to go in for a kiss, but instead, he dipped his head down to whisper in Prompto's ear. "You too, Prom," he responded in kind, before finally stopping in front of Prompto's lips and rewarding him with a kiss.

Prompto responded in kind, unable to keep himself from extending a hand to place lightly against Noctis' chest. Muscle beneath his fingers made him smirk a little bit into the kiss, and lift his other hand to place on Noctis' waist. This wasn't exactly moving to the hot tub, but Prompto couldn't say that he didn't feel relaxed. With his lips pressed against Noctis', there was a quick moment where he felt simultaneously more relaxed and tenser—but in a good way—and when Noctis broke the kiss, he felt himself lamenting the loss.

"Keep that up and we probably won't even make it to the hot tub," Noctis teased.

Shrugging his head to the side, Prompto half-smiled, and mused, "you won't hear me complain," before taking his teeth along his lower lip and then leaning up to catch Noctis' in a brief kiss.

Noctis laughed against his lips, before taking each of Prompto's hands in his own and tugging him up from where he sat on the bed. "C'mon. You need the hot tub, especially with how rough your day was," he insisted, dropping one of Prompto's hands and using the other to tug him along toward the bathroom.

The door stayed open, just like the door to the hallway, so they still had a clear earshot to the living room. Prompto wanted to look around. This was the part of the apartment that they'd never really been allowed in when they were younger. Noctis' dad let them into the hot tub, sure, but they always had to be quick when they went through his bathroom. That weird rule that parents always had, where their kids weren't allowed in the parent's bedroom for long, or in the parent's bathroom. Prompto tried to make sure that he never imposed rules like that on Venia, and he kept anything that she wasn't supposed to be in on high shelves. Out of her reach.

While Prompto _wanted_ to look around, he found himself unable to keep his eyes from Noctis. The way his body moved was gorgeous. The way he turned every now and then to smile at Prompto, and the way he only turned the other way when he had to open the door that led from the master bathroom to the small room that the hot tub was in... it made the whole moment feel all the more surreal.

"Wow. I legitimately just walked through your dad's bathroom and didn't even stop to look around. Teenage me is screaming at me at the moment," Prompto couldn't help but point out, as Noctis fumbled along the opposite wall for the light switch.

Noctis chuckled softly, before finally flipping the switch on. "Priorities are a little different from what they were when we were younger, though," he replied, before gently tugging Prompto into the room with him.

The hot tub looked pretty much the same as it always had when they were kids and teenagers. The whole room looked pretty much the same, too. Black tiled walls and floor, with the black hot tub in the center. With the lights off, Prompto probably would have easily tripped and fallen into the thing. As it was, he took a couple of steps forward, and looked down into the bubbling water with an eager smile. "You turned it on beforehand, huh?"

"Yeah. Before the movie started. Wanted to give it a chance to heat up. Y'know?" After a pause and a gentle chuckle, Noctis urged Prompto to step in. "You think Ven will notice if I sneak into the kitchen real quick?"

Prompto quirked an eyebrow. "Probably not, no. It takes an act of the Astrals to wake her up in the morning for school, as you saw, so you can probably make as much noise as you need to, and she still won't wake up." He chuckled softly. "Always sort of joked about her having a piece of you in her, even though she's not your kid." That was accompanied by a smile as he sat on the lip of the hot tub.

Noctis smiled sheepishly, before leaning in to press a gentle peck to Prompto's cheek. "Be right back, then. Make yourself comfortable, okay?"

All that did was make Prompto's brow quirk higher. "Where're you going?" he asked, following Noctis with his eyes as he backed up a couple of steps.

"It's a surprise. Just, promise me that when I get back, you'll be all comfortable and relaxing in there, okay?" Noctis replied, pausing at the doorway and waiting for Prompto to answer. A mischievous smile danced in his eyes, even though it wasn't exactly on his lips, and Prompto's stomach was doing flips inside his abdomen in response.

Truthfully, with that look on his face, Noctis could ask for the moon, and Prompto would probably enroll himself in a space program the next day. So, he just nodded his head and watched as Noctis disappeared through the doorway and hurried through the master bathroom. Only when Noctis was out of sight did Prompto turn around and glance down at the hot tub. Okay. A promise to make himself comfortable in a hot tub was pretty much the easiest promise he'd ever been asked to keep, so he stepped over the tub's lip and dipped his toe into the water to test its temperature.

Perfect. With a sharp breath in, he submerged one foot, then that same leg, and then he stepped over with the other foot and slowly dipped it into the water, too. His legs and feet, which up until that moment had been screaming at him in their exhaustion, felt a slow release of tension. Slowly, he lowered himself down until he was sitting on the seat with his front facing the door, so he could see Noctis as soon as he came back.

It ended up not mattering in the least. As soon as he settled in, he relaxed completely, and let his head hang back as the tension slowly tried to find its way out of his muscles. Yeah. Noctis was absolutely right. He needed this. Tension eased out of his muscles and he breathed a slow and easy breath outward, getting rid of the last of the bad mood that work always left him with. The movie earlier—the time spent lazing on the couch with Venia and Noctis—did a decent enough job at that, but whatever was leftover was slowly melting out of his muscles with the bubbles and heat that surrounded him.

As he relaxed, though, he wondered exactly what Noctis was up to, and what was taking him so long to get back.

Almost as though summoned by Prompto's internal question, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Soft footsteps, the soft sound of bare feet on the tile that he could only hear because they were close enough to _be_ heard. He opened his eyes and lifted his head lazily, before smirking at Noctis, who had apparently been in the room for a little while now.

Noctis was plugging his iPod into the wall, and he had a small Pink Anak bag on the floor. The sight of the bag made Prompto cringe a little bit, and turn his head away to focus his attention on Noctis instead. "I live here now, by the way."

"I mean, I wouldn't complain," Noctis countered, as he flipped through his iPod.

This time, he settled on something that wasn't the nostalgic music they'd been listening to together over the past few days. It was soft, gentle to the ear, and probably made for relaxation. It wasn't _totally_ boring, though. Just easy to the ear. Prompto smiled a little bit as he watched Noctis set the grocery bag on the floor at the far end of the hot tub, wipe his feet on a mat, and then step up and over the lip, before sinking down in.

Prompto didn't lean his head back this time. Instead, he kept his eyes on his boyfriend, watching as Noctis slid across the hot tub and settled in next to him. "Don't mean the apartment," he murmured, sliding a little bit closer to Noctis. "I meant here. The hot tub. I mean, you'd pay me to sit here all day and be lazy and relax, right? 'Cause you love me?"

The smirk on Noctis' face grew ever wider, and he nodded his head. "Yeah, I'd pay for you to live in my hot tub, and yeah, I do love you," he muttered, before stealing another kiss that was way too chaste and innocent for the whole mood that he seemed to be trying to set.

"Soft music. A hot tub. A mysterious bag from my personal hell that you're pretty determined to keep hidden from me," Prompto mused, taking Noctis' hand in his and lacing their fingers together. "Noctis Caelum, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to seduce me." He ticked his eyebrows upward in a playful—but intrigued—gesture.

Noctis shrugged, his own lips curling into a grin. He lifted their hands from the hot water, and brought Prompto's fingers to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss against his knuckles. "What if I am?"

A low rumble of laughter was Prompto's only initial response, as he smoothed his thumb along the back of Noctis' hand. "Well, for one, you're doing a damn good job," he mused, laughing a soft breath of laughter through his nose. "For two? You honestly didn't need to try so hard, 'cause seeing you without your shirt on like that? Was prob'ly enough to do it for me." He felt his cheeks flushing, but that was easy enough to pass off as the heat rising from the hot tub.

The laugh that Noctis responded with, though, only made the heat on his cheeks spread up to his ears. Low and rumbling. Heavy and filled with as much _want_ as Prompto knew that he felt. This was another situation that he'd thought of dozens of hundreds of thousands of times, and none of those times was it anything like this. As a teenager, he'd imagined them in each of their beds, in Noctis' car, in places that they _probably_ shouldn't have been—like the back alley behind the arcade, or their favorite bench in the park—but in a hot tub, like this? Never.

"So, what was in the bag?" Prompto asked.

It probably would have made more sense to just go with it; to follow the moment and just tell Noctis that Prompto would probably be down for _whatever_ he wanted to do. Still, the rest of the mood was set nicely; quiet music filling the room, the sound of the bubbles and the feeling of the hot water as it worked whatever tension remained out of Prompto's body, and just... Noctis being Noctis. All the same, it was hard to deny a little curiosity as to what Noctis could have _possibly_ planned to make the moment any better.

Noctis laughed an awkward node, and it just made Prompto all the more curious. "Well, uh... wasn't really part of my plan," he admitted. "But... it's something for us all the same."

Prompto didn't understand exactly what it meant, and the complete and total ease he was in at the moment had him letting out a soft, disapproving whimper at the fact that Noctis was moving away from him and crossing the hot tub again. He knew that he'd asked, though, and that he couldn't really get an answer unless he let Noctis move and grab whatever it was from the bag. Noctis' body moved just slightly out of his reach, and Prompto let their fingers slip apart, but kept his eyes on Noctis as he leaned over the edge of the hot tub, drying his hands on a cloth and pulling something from the bag.

When he returned, he displayed a small pink card to Prompto. "See?" he asked.

In his hand, he held a small piece of paper, and Prompto made quick work of reading it. _Use these wisely. Venia sleeps like a rock and we know you have a jacuzzi. A &C_

A&C. Oh, gods. "What did they do?" he asked. A tiny bit of anxious tension crept its way back into his muscles, and he turned to look at Noctis apologetically.

The look on Noctis' face eased him just slightly. It was equal parts embarrassed and amused, as he set the piece of paper off to the side and crossed the hot tub again. This time, he came back with two glasses in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. Prompto expected that to be the end, but once again, Noctis moved to the other side of the hot tub and emerged with a crate of strawberries and a small tub of whipped cream. When he settled back in, and set them off to the side—within his reach, but not within Prompto's—he gave a nervous laugh.

"They, uh... apparently expected something to happen."

To say that Prompto was embarrassed was a tragic understatement, and he brought his hand up to slide down his face. "By the Six... I'm sorry, Noct. Were... were you only doing this because of that? Because they like... I don't know, made it seem like I was desperate or something?"

Noctis' eyebrows raised in surprise, and he shook his head no. "What? N-no, no way," he said, keeping his voice low but still conveying a little bit of surprise in the shakiness. "Besides, there's no _way_ that you're desperate. You couldn't be." When he finished speaking, he bit down on his lip nervously, then glanced down at the water's surface.

Desperate, no. If he was truly desperate, then he'd probably have hopped into bed with anyone. He'd been relatively content before. Happy with the way his life was, and ready to just spend his time being the best dad he could to Venia. Still, he knew that they knew exactly how much he wanted _Noctis_ in particular. It wasn't as though he was _actively_ holding himself in stasis, saving himself for someone that he didn't know he would ever have again. Actually, Venia's existence was proof of that. If he hadn't tried to move on, he wouldn't have her.

So, yeah, he'd absolutely tried to move on. He'd _absolutely_ tried to find someone who could make his heart race like Noctis could. That was the problem, though. None of them could.

In that sense, maybe he was a little bit desperate. Desperate for Noctis, though. Not for anyone else. He raised his head and looked Noctis in the eye with a gentle huff of embarrassed laughter. "I mean, neither are you, though," he pointed out. "There's no way _you_ could be desperate, either. Like, I'm sure you've been with people while we were apart."

"I mean, yeah," Noctis shrugged a shoulder. "I've been with people. But they're just people. You know? They weren't you. I dated a few people in Altissia. Some of them lasted a little while, but most of them didn't. The one thing all of them had in common, though, was that none of them were you. It always kinda felt like something was missing. Like I was going through the motions and dating because I felt like I was _supposed_ to. Not because I actually ever really wanted to be with any of them."

Again, without realizing it, Noctis had pretty much said exactly what Prompto had been thinking. It made Prompto laugh again, this time without any hint of embarrassment in it. "It's so funny. In the back of my mind, I always sorta worried that if I ever saw you again? We wouldn't have what we had before. That we'd have missed each other, all for nothing. But we're still pretty much the same people, aren't we? Just older and more mature."

Noctis smirked. "Not too mature, though."

"No way," Prompto answered with a wry grin as he reached around Noctis and gathered the strawberries in one hand, then the whipped cream in the other. "I think... a part of me worried that we'd have changed too much to be like this. That we'd, y'know, not have anything in common anymore. That I'd be too... small world, country mouse, and you'd be this big name in art who's been living his life with the other big names in Altissia, and we wouldn't be Noctis and Prompto anymore." He set the strawberries off to the side, and tore the top from the whipped cream tub.

With a gentle shrug, Noctis glanced down at the water. "I worried, too," he admitted. "But I think... yeah, we're the same people? But we're also just different enough that it works. Like, you're still you. You still love taking pictures, and you still love chocobos and playing video games and you still work so hard to make sure that everyone around you is happy." As he spoke, a fond smile spread across his face.

Prompto's own smile went a little bit bashful, and he set the open tub of whipped cream off to the side, before gathering a strawberry from the crate. "And you're still you. You still encourage all the best sides of the people you love, you still love art and you still know how to make me smile and laugh better than anyone else. And you still always know what to say to make me stop worrying about stupid things and just... relax," he chuckled, as he swirled the end of a strawberry around in the whipped cream.

"I don't think I'd want to live in a world where we weren't compatible," Noctis mused.

Humming an agreeing answer, Prompto held the strawberry and whipped cream out for Noctis to eat. "Me either," he insisted. "Like... it sounds stupid. It sounds really dependent, which is probably bad, but I feel like I'm less me when I'm not with you. Venia is, obviously, the most important person in the world to me. But you..." He paused, watching as Noctis bit the strawberry, and smiling as a little bit of red juice dripped out of the corner of his mouth.

Noctis chuckled, and spoke around a mouthful of fruit. "A different kind of important?" he asked, grabbing a strawberry of his own and swirling it around in the whipped cream tub.

With a nod, Prompto smiled as he met Noctis' eyes. "But still really, really important. Like, really important."

"Since we're being cliché and honest?" Noctis mused, holding a strawberry out for Prompto, who immediately bit into it. "I feel like I kind of... woke up when we saw each other at the reunion that day. Like, I know I already told you that I love you, and I do, and I meant it. There's no way that'll ever change. But... I feel like, life sort of became like... existence? Like I was living, you know? And I was dealing with the day to day, and doing my thing, drawing and painting, and was still making decent money, but... I feel like when I saw you again, I got that spark of creativity back."

After a pause, he added, "I painted something that I'm really proud of today, for the first time in almost a year." His voice was a little bit quiet, his face a little bit red, and he looked down at the water again.

Prompto was more surprised—and impressed, of course—than anything else, but he smiled a wide smile and set the strawberries and cream off to the side. One hand went to Noctis' chin, grinning at the tickle of the stubble under his fingers, and he turned Noctis' head so that they were eye-to-eye. When Noctis finally looked at him again, he leaned in, pressing their lips together and enjoying the sweet taste of strawberries all over again.

When the kiss broke, Prompto leaned his forehead against Noctis' and asked, "what was it?"

"A landscape," Noctis answered softly. "Which, I know, doesn't sound like a big deal, but this one? This one was pretty much... you guys. You and Venia." He paused, and laughed sheepishly. "Probably doesn't make a _ton_ of sense. The two of you as a landscape," he mused.

Prompto shook his head. "Not really, but I'm still listening," he told Noctis.

Before Noctis answered, he placed his hand on Prompto's side and tilted his head, like he was beckoning for Prompto to follow his movements. Prompto did so willingly, and turned his body toward Noctis, with a knee on either side of Noctis' hips. Noctis locked his hands around Prompto's back, holding him close and allowing him to relax again, before he kept talking. "The sky was blue like your eyes. Spotted with stars like your freckles," he explained, leaning forward just slightly and pressing a kiss to Prompto's chest. "And it was of this field, where half of it was waving with the wind and the other half was straight. Like her hair, and yours."

A second kiss to Prompto's chest, and Prompto arched his back a little bit, pushing his chest forward to make it easier for Noctis to kiss him again.

"And in the middle of the field?" Noctis spoke, with his mouth against Prompto's chest for a third kiss. "Was a shadowed figure, staring up at the sky, surrounded by all of this blue sky and golden grass. Can you guess who that figure was?" As soon as he finished speaking, he kissed Prompto's chest again.

With a soft and short breath through his nose, Prompto let out a gentle laugh and answered, "I can guess."

Noctis nodded his head and craned his head upward just slightly to meet Prompto's eye again. "I'm sure you can," he retorted, the bashful smile on his face ever-growing.

It was unfair, how someone could be so adorable and so gorgeous at the same time. Prompto craned his neck downward, crashing his lips into Noctis' a little bit harder this time. He circled his hips just a little bit, too, disguising it as trying to find the perfect angle to get a real, deep kiss in this position. Really, though, he was just testing the waters. Trying to see Noctis' reaction. When it earned a slight digging of Noctis' fingers into the muscle on Prompto's back, and a slightly stuttered rock of his _own_ hips, Prompto couldn't help but grin a little bit against Noctis' lips.

Slowly, Prompto broke the kiss, and leaned back down and brushed his lips against Noctis' ear. "So, you got your muse back, huh?" he asked.

"Mmm," Noctis answered coyly. "Holding part of it right now, actually."

Well, that wasn't the answer he was expecting at all, and it took him completely off guard, sending his sexy and confident act tumbling down into the bubbling water beneath them. He managed a gentle chuckle at that, a chuckle which turned into a slightly deeper laugh when Noctis took advantage of their position to press a slow, open-mouthed kiss to the crook of his neck. Okay, that wasn't fair, and Prompto laughed a shaky laugh into his boyfriend's shoulder at that fact.

Prompto tilted his head a little bit, letting Noctis kiss his neck again—which he did, tiny open-mouthed kisses all over each and every bit of Prompto's neck that he could easily access—and murmured, "don't think I've ever been someone's muse before."

"You have," Noctis muttered against his skin. "Been mine since we were teenagers, actually." As soon as he finished speaking, he kissed Prompto's neck again, then turned his head to capture Prompto's lips in a slower, deeper kiss this time.

They kissed until neither of them could breathe, until their lips parted with an oddly satisfying smacking sound. Even when their lips parted, even after Prompto pulled in a sharp gasp of air, he was still having a slightly difficult time breathing, though. His heart raced in his chest, and the way he leaned against Noctis told him that Noctis' heart, too, was racing.

With a lopsided grin on his face, Prompto leaned down, arching his back slightly so that he could lean his forehead against Noctis'. "N-Noct, I..." he stammered.

Noctis laughed a breathless laugh—not a humorous one, but one where Prompto was pretty sure that he was trying to level his own head out a little bit—and answered, "me too. I have for a long time."

Even without finishing his sentence, Noctis knew exactly what Prompto was going to say. It was as funny and unexpected, as it was _fully_ expected, and it definitely served to prove to Prompto that this was exactly where both of them belonged. What were they waiting for, then? Prompto leaned down again, crashing their lips together and lightly rocking their hips together, wordlessly telling Noctis that it was okay. That if he wanted Prompto, he could absolutely, positively, without question, _have_ exactly what he wanted...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE, I DIDN'T FORGET THIS FIC. Just needed a little time to figure out what I wanted to do with it!


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